Millennial Moms: Confident, Cool, Connected

December 7, 2017

Meredith Custom Solutions

When it comes to Millennials, everyone has an opinion. But, for the sake of this post, we’re going to focus exclusively on facts—insights to help you better understand Millennial moms and how to best communicate with them. Millennials are often separated into two categories: trailing and leading.

Trailing: born between 1986 and 1994 (ages 23 – 31)
Leading: born between 1977 and 1985 (ages 32 – 40)

Leading Millennials account for 13 million moms (with kids ages 0 – 12) while Trailing Millennials are quickly joining the parenting ranks and now represent 4 million moms. In fact, 1.3 million Millennials gave birth for the first time in 2015 (the most recent census data) and they now account for about 90% of U.S. births. Millennials are diverse, confident, tech-savvy—and now, they’re moms!

Millennial Moms are Connected

Millennial moms use social media to keep up with popular culture but also to recommend the latest and greatest products to their friends. They maintain 3.4 social networks on average, and spend 17.4 hours per week on social sites—that’s 4 hours more on average than any other ‘mom’ group. Even more, 87% of Millennials say their phone never leaves their side.

Millennial Moms Love Social Networks

When it comes to social networks, Facebook is king. Facebook use among Millennial moms is a whopping 84%, while 58% use Pinterest, 45% use Instagram, 36% use Twitter, and 17% use Snapchat. Millennial moms often use these social networks as a parenting resource, so you’ll want to at least have a Facebook presence in order to reach and communicate with these moms effectively.

How WIC Can Socially Engage with Millennial Moms

In an average month, the number of times Millennial moms “like” or recommend products or services online is 10.4, compared with 7.7 for total moms. Also in an average month, Millennial moms re-tweet or re-pin products or services online 7.8 times. Social engagement is crucial to Millennial moms, and in turn should be crucial to WIC. It is essential for WIC to use social media for effective marketing services and to stay in touch with moms. To do this, we recommend that you:

• Tout your services! Don’t be shy. Tell everyone on your social media networks how great WIC is and what kind of services you offer. You can also serve up parenting and nutrition tips straight from your own staff so moms see you as a helpful resource.
• For states that are participating in the NWA Recruitment & Retention Campaign use the Facebook posts provided by NWA. Access the Resource Center of the Campaign Online Community here. You’ll find 52 posts (in English and Spanish) and images about a variety of topics that you can upload to your clinic’s Facebook page. They can be personalized to suit your needs.
• Create a dialogue with moms. Use social media to invite them to use your clinic’s Facebook page or Twitter account to ask questions or post comments about WIC and its services—and then respond quickly! Creating a space where moms feel comfortable reaching out to you goes a long way in building up trust and keeping them engaged.

To learn more about how Meredith Custom Solutions can help your state or center, please contact Jen Powlison at Jen.Powlison@meredith.com.