Earlier this week I was lucky to be in attendance at a one-day event known as Mom Dot Com. Sponsored and hosted by Baby Center and Google, we spent the morning talking about the modern mom and what her life looks online (social media use by moms has increased by 591% since 2006). We’ve known for awhile that moms are the ones making most household purchase decisions. What Mom Dot Com brought to the table were stats and behavior models showing most of those decisions are made, if not also completed, online. In honor of Mother’s Day, today’s Friday Five is built on five key learnings presented at Mom Dot Com, many of which came from Baby Center’s 21st Century Mom Report, a great place to delve a little deeper (published in July, 2009).

Doctor Mom

Moms have always reached out to other mothers when exploring questions about a child’s health. Related queries are the leading topic of interest in online communities (91 percent) followed by childhood development tips (79 percent) and product reviews (72 percent). 84 percent say the Internet has made them more informed about children’s health issues.

Mobile Mom

SMS text usage only continues to increase among moms with 89% saying they are more likely to use texts to communicate since becoming moms and 91 percent said they never leave the house without a cell phone.

Hispanic Mom

Hispanic moms are spending 18 percent more time online compared to three years ago and 81% use text messaging services.

Chef Mom

Of all the duties moms delegate to search engines, the largest percentage (77 percent) use them to find recipes. “Online” has officially become the #1 source for recipes, surpassing both cookbooks and magazines. Recipe searches just recently bubbled over 97 million.

Branded Mom

As soon as kids enter the equation and a woman becomes a mom, every previous purchase preference is called to question. 51 percent of moms change brands completely once the baby arrives. Tightening budgets and health are listed as two of the main reasons. 71 percent of moms would switch brands thanks to a coupon and children also act as the gateway to organics. Women buying organic food jumps from 16 percent to 33 percent once they become moms.

Image credit: Avei Photo