Girls In Tech

Forrester released an interesting study this week entitled, “Reaching Empowered Women Through Social Media,” that discusses how consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands can engage with a key audience segment- empowered women.

It’s interesting to see a study like this released because it highlights how highly influential women are.  Their status and influence in the online world is growing rapidly.
They are the decision-makers in their households, influential among their friends and a key demographic target for many brands.

According to the report summary, “empowered women” are females ages 25 to 54 who feel that the Internet helps them manage family life. Author, Emily Riley, says that in order to engage these empowered women successfully and pull ahead of the competition, CPG companies must design campaigns that enhance communication and aid in consumers’ decision-making and influence.

While I didn’t get a chance to read the full report, I did read Gavin O’Malley’s summary on Media Post and pulled a few good tidbits of advice and some interesting stats on empowered women:

• Don’t sound generic. Pick a specific audience to talk to and create campaigns around that audience’s behaviors rather than brand objectives.
• Social media is not about sounding cooler than you normally do. It’s about making your brand more personal than on other channels.
• Social campaigns require long-term commitments. Once you’ve made a connection with someone, they are going to expect a higher level of interaction over a longer period of time than with a commercial or a banner ad.

Stats:

• 42% of empowered women visit social networks like Facebook and MySpace, compared to just 33% of all U.S. adults online engaging in such activity.
• One-third of empowered women use social networking sites mainly for communication compared with 23% of all online adults.
• Nearly one-third — 32% — of empowered women will actively go to friends’ pages on social networking sites to keep in touch, compared with only 21% of all online adults.
• Empowered women care about value and like knowing as much as they can before they buy. 81% of empowered women say it’s important for them to find the best deal they can on things they buy, compared with 63% of U.S. online adults ages 18 and up.

Tags: "Lucia Giacomantonio", Emily Riley, empowered, Forrester, Gavin O'Malley, social media, women
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The AP reported this week that Hillary Clinton and the US Department of State are embracing new media to spread the word about American foreign policy and help restore Washington’s image.

Its refreshing to see that the State is experimenting with social media to help carry out their mission of creating a more secure, democratic, and prosperous world for Americans and the international community.  We saw this work successfully for Obama during the campaign and it will be exciting to see how “Government 2.0″ progresses in the coming years.

Here are some of the changes Hillary’s team took since taking office:

• They have revamped the department’s Web site (http://www.state.gov) and the Gi blog (http://blogs.state.gov and http://twitter.com/dipnote) with a fresh array of features, graphics and colorful posts.

• Users can track her foreign travel on an interactive map (http://www.state.gov/secretary/trvl/map/?trip–id5)

• They can keep up virtually with her every move through Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/statevideo).

• They can pose questions through an “ask-the-secretary” column (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/ask/secretary/117297.htm) that recently was revised to “text the secretary.” (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/ask/secretary/120236.htm)

According to the article, Hillary’s staff says they also plan to venture further into the realm of social networking, an animated online world called Second Life, and cell phone technology.

Having moved to the Silicon Valley area in 2007, just as Twitter was emerging and Facebook opened up registration to non-college students, it’s been very interesting to see the progression of these tools to mainstream. Its essentially history in the making and we’re all watching it happen.

Tags: "Lucia Giacomantonio", Dipnote, facebook, Flickr, girls in tech, Hillary Clinton, social media, twitter, youtube
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This Thursday, March 5th, Girls in Tech is pleased to host an event featuring one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent software engineers, Leah Culver.

The event will be an informal discussion where Leah will share with us her journey from a computer science major at the University of Minnesota to a successful entrepreneur.  She’ll provide insight on what it’s like to be a lead programmer at a social networking startup and how she got there.

Leah is an inspiration to many, as women continue to be underrepresented in the computer science and engineering fields.  In fact, a New York Times article from last year reported that women now make up less than 10 percent of the newest undergraduates in computer science departments!   Girls In Tech recently announced the launch of Girls In Tech University, a program we hope will change this.

Tickets to Thursday’s event are limited.  If you’d like to join us, please register on Eventbrite.

We hope to see you there!

Tags: "Lucia Giacomantonio", girls in tech, Girls in Tech University, Leah Culver
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Big thanks to all who came out to yesterday to the Girls In Tech Incubator event featuring Circle of Moms.  For those of you not familiar with our Incubator events, they are usually smaller, informal events where we speak with the founder of a company to learn more about their business, how they got started, challenges they faced and lessons learned. The events are largely driven by the audience and what they want to know. In addition, it’s an opportunity for the company to solicit feedback and ideas from Girls In Tech members.

If you happen to miss last night’s event, here are a few takeaways:

1.     You don’t need to be your own target demographic; it’s all about the user. It may seem ironic to some that Circle of Moms was founded by two guys, neither of which are fathers, but last night we learned that falling outside your key demographic target has its advantages.  According to founder Ephraim Luft, the team is only responsible for building the technology, but it’s the mothers and the relationships they share with each other that make the site a success.  Being male forces the company to come up with product features based on the actions of their users, not by assuming they know what the user wants.  They are dependent on listening to and understanding their customers’ needs.  Focus groups, surveys and user behavior on the site all help to drive new features.

2.     Don’t be afraid to evolve your product into something different.  Something I didn’t note above is that the two male founders did not set out to build a site geared towards mothers.  The site was originally called Circle of Friends and was a place for everyone to connect.  As Circle of Friends grew, Ephraim and his partner realized that their most active and passionate users were mothers.  Being the analytical, methodical business people that they are, they decided to capitalize on this and focus their attention on mothers.  They began building a product that truly caters to the needs of mothers and the site evolved into Circle of Moms.

3.     It’s all about Word of Mouth.  One thing I found particularly amazing about the company is their viral growth.  The company did not do any direct marketing or PR yet still managed to build up over 850,000 registered users.  So the question is- how did they do it?  Obviously there is no simple answer to this question as every site, product or company is different.  According to Ephraim, the company focused on getting users to market the service to one another.  They spent a lot of time looking at data and user funnels to come up with an effective system to allow users to market to one another.  Of course the Facebook application helped, as well as their community manager, who is a mother herself.  All of this has lead Circle of Moms to great success since the official launch in October 2008.

4.     Circle of Moms is hiring! Job openings have not been posted anywhere yet, but if you are looking for a job in business development, marketing or product management email jobs@circleofmoms.com.  Bonus points if you are a mom

If you attended last night’s event and you have any takeaways you’d like to share, please do so in the comments.  If you are a Circle of Moms member, you can provide feedback on the site at feedback@circleofmoms.com.

Tags: "Lucia Giacomantonio", Circle of Moms, Ephraim Luft, facebook, girls in tech, Incubator event
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