Blogs

How BlogFrog Monetizes the Massive Influence of Women Bloggers

How do you get to be called the largest woman-blogger network in the country?

You believe in what BlogFrog CEO and co-founder , Rustin Banks, says: “Elevated authentic editorial brought to you by a brand is the future.”

What’s he talking about?

He’s talking about sponsored conversations with a very large blogger group that pose questions near and dear to a brand’s heart,  and solicits viewer responses ( chatter, votes, stories, advice, suggestions, etc.) near and dear to a brand’s bottom line.

The same brand that paid to have the sponsored conversation to begin with.

Nothing especially unique about this ever since the line between editorial and advertising got blurry, and more blurred back a little while ago.


But in  far-ranging article in Entrepreneur Magazine by Jennifer Wang, we learn that Banks has successfully tapped into the mother lode of online influencers: Mothers.

Statistically, as the article points out, “moms” lead the pack in innovation in digital commerce and media,  with this generation of moms being “tech-savvy, highly educated and (controlling) 85 percent of household income.”
They’re also the most “social demographic,” meaning if they like or dislike something, they say it. On line. Socially and virally.

So, BlogFrog, borrowing a sentiment from Pinterest, perhaps, set out to become a social network organized around what people are interested in, not who they know.  Which led to their having 125,000 active members and 65,000 bloggers, with a reach of 10 million parents making it, arguably, “the largest mom-blogger network in the country.”  As we said.

Lots of social networks offer bloggers the opportunity to generate revenue through advertising on their blogs.

But the three-year old BlogFrog actually offers tools for bloggers (mostly “moms”) to create their own communities, discussions and video content,  and connects these to brands willing to pay to be part of the conversation.

The company vets its bloggers. Based on a range of “influence factors,” it chooses its chief bloggers (“community leaders”)  and sets them loose to create a larger blogger group around topics of interest to brands, who pay a fee determined by the number of bloggers and their reach.

Already ABC News, Lego, Procter and Gamble are reportedly  among the big brands that have signed on  probably because BlogFrog fills the need for customers and brands to be connected,  but without advertising, which has no real capacity to drill down and customize the brand’s messages.

Bloggers are happy  because the company has allegedly paid out more than half a million dollars in one year to them.

What’s cool about the site (besides being able to earn some big bucks) is that unlike a typical blog, there is a conversation among community, questions and answers, back and forth. In a blog, there is no cross conversation; no sideways chatter.

However, it’s not that simple to sign up and get going. While the actual signing up is relatively easy, I was left feeling unsupported in my next steps and had trouble with the embedding code.

Still, as Laurie Turk of TipJunkie.com, the popular DIY/craft site says, BlogFrog “is giving mom bloggers the opportunity to wield power and influence...to make a ‘mom blogger’ a profession.”

And that, as they say, can be taken to the bank