A new study from ShareThis examines the social sharing behaviors of 200,000 mothers aged 25-54 with children in the household. The analysis of their behavior across the 2.4 million sites in the ShareThis network over a 1-month period, which amounted to more than 1 million social signals, reveals that 30% of mothers shared content on the network during the period, compared to 10% of the network’s overall average. Mothers were most likely to share content about parenting (18%) and movies & TV (15%), with those 2 categories alone combining to represent one-third of shares.
Beyond those top 2 categories, only one other cracked the double-digits: technology, representing 10% of shares by mothers.
Interestingly, when looking at browsing behavior, the study reveals that a leading 22% of browsing is related to movies and TV (versus 15% of shares), while only 9% of browsing is related to parenting content (versus 18% of shares). Online games represent about one-tenth of all content consumption, but only 5% of sharing.
Examining how mothers’ social sharing behaviors differ from the general population on the ShareThis network, the researchers show that (unsurprisingly) the biggest difference lies in sharing of parenting content, with mothers also more likely to share health, music, science, and food and drink content, among others.
Getting mothers to share is important for marketers because they happen to be quite influential: mothers generated 9.5 clicks per piece of shared content, compared to 8.8 for the general population.
Other Findings:
- Mothers are less likely than the general population sample to share on Facebook (34% vs. 56%), but far more likely to share on Pinterest (29% vs. 12%) and StumbleUpon (14% vs. 5%).
- 3PM counts as mothers’ most likely time to share content.
About the Data: Mothers included in the study are married, separated, or single. The general population average was for 200 million users in the ShareThis network.
