Being a mom: It's hectic. It's joyful. It's surprising. It's rewarding. It also happens to be the name of a new independent media property for moms that seeks to celebrate the common ground and shared experiences of motherhood.
"We strive to capture the essence of what it means to have a lifetime ticket to this crazy ride," said Kathy Doody, general manager of the site.
Filling a niche media need
It started as an experiment run by the Boston-based social advertising and content company Brand Networks. As one of the resident moms on that team, Doody was particularly interested in determining if Facebook Pages could connect moms from around the globe and serve as a hub for this community. Before long, more than 700,000 liked the page.
Now, Being a Mom is operating as its own startup site—focused on content about motherhood—incubated within Brand Networks.
"We strive to capture the essence of what it means to have a lifetime ticket to this crazy ride."
During the Facebook Page experiment, it quickly became clear that the creators would need to go beyond serving up bite-sized pieces of info into offering longer-form content, conversations and editorial. That meant building a site that was suited for the job. Brand Networks CEO Jamie Tedford saw that a site would be better suited to serving this audience, and thus, Being a Mom was re-launched as a site all its own. Doody was a natural fit for general manager, having spent the early part of her career in women’s publishing and then later in social media.
Being a Mom is divided into content categories including Funny, Cute, Health and Education. The content ranges from interesting facts about twins, to tips for breastfeeding moms, to news about Kelly Clarkson’s newborn. (Sort of a Buzzfeed or Upworthy for motherhood, if you will.)
Since its launch, hundreds of bloggers have submitted content for publishing consideration, and the startup has now built a small network of regular contributors. Doody said that most of the contributors are bloggers, some have syndicated columns and a few are copywriters—but 99 percent of them are moms.
Goals for growth
Being a Mom is funded by Brand Networks right now, but the startup is currently talking to outside investors about raising a seed round, according to Doody. When it re-launched in October as a separate site, the company set a goal of achieving 1 million monthly unique users before seeking outside investment; she is now expecting the site to surpass that goal this month.
Being a Mom is also generating revenue.
Being a Mom is also generating revenue. With its roots as a Brand Networks project, the startup is able to charge for some of the same content distribution services that its parent company has been successful at selling. The team works with advertisers to co-create and curate long-form editorial, videos, vines, tweets, memes and images that they test and distribute to the Being a Mom audience, as well as through social channels. Additionally, the site serves ads via Google Ad Sense and Taboola. On top of that, the company bundles its content services and paid distribution through sponsorships from brands, including consumer product companies, book publishers and retailers.
One of the current key priorities for Being a Mom is testing out new monetization strategies including ad networks, live events, video and content sponsorships. But beyond that, Doody says the team has a slew of other plans. Beyond growing its contributor base, the site aims to improve both the quantity and quality of the content, build its email marketing base and extend its social distribution to Twitter and Pinterest. Moreover, as over 88 percent of users access Being a Mom on their mobile devices, optimizing that experience is a continual focus.
Photo of a mother with baby via Shutterstock.
