Tracey Hope-Ross, VP of Research at Mom Central Consulting, recently interviewed Sarah Hofstetter on MCC’s revolution + research = R2 blog. In the five question interview, Sarah (SVP of Emerging Media & Client Strategy here at 360i) shares how brands can approach opportunities – and crises – in social media. Here’s an excerpt:

MCC: How should a company best prepare to respond to a Social Media crisis?

SH: Starting a listening program TODAY and develop your escalation program NOW. There isn’t an elementary school around that doesn’t have a series of fire drill preps where they train children about what they should do in the event of an emergency. Why shouldn’t you have that same protection for your brand?

Social media invites participation from anyone – employees, customers, investors – and therefore defies organizational boundaries by those departments it impacts – marketing, PR, customer care, HR and more. By actively listening to the conversations people are having about your brand, you can have a solid idea of what topics, products, features are interesting or unfavorable to your audiences, which can help inform marketing and creative strategies.

And for those who might speak negatively, you can also size that audience to gauge if that person has the potential to reach a much broader audience and kickstart a very negative reputation for you. Once you have an identification and escalation procedure in place, you can then swiftly address the situation with the right team.

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More than 16 million.

That’s the number of moms who actively participate in the blogosphere each week as either content providers or readers, according to a recent MediaPost Engage:Moms article. And with 67 percent of moms online looking for help in making purchasing decisions, it’s no wonder that marketers and PR professionals are paying more and more attention to this influential community.

At 360i, we believe what links bloggers and brands can (and should) be a transparent and reciprocal value exchange that benefits blogger, marketer and reader. Our team of digital publicists abides to its own Code of Ethics for Blogger & Online Relations, which you can read here (PDF).

But for some of today’s online writers, the lines between blogger and journalist are blurring. The tension regarding this topic has reached fever pitch, with the Federal Trade Commission taking steps to compose a new set of guidelines that seek to make sense of what should count as advertising in the blogosphere. Compound that with the army of bloggers declaring their recent state of “bloggy burnout,” and you’ve got yourself a certifiable hot-button issue.

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@TwitterMoms has amassed more than 17,000 followers since Jan. 2009 (stats via TwitterCounter).

By Lara Hejtmanek, Director of Customer Insights

In honor of Mother’s Day we thought we’d take a closer look at the influential mom set, a rising power of reach and distinction in the digital world. Moms can be influential opinion leaders and vocal activists – just ask the makers of the infamous “Wearing Your Baby” Motrin video. And with events like Oprah announcing her own Twitter feed on April 17 (she’s racked up 850,000 followers as of May 5), the groundswell of mommy power will likely pick up even more momentum in the social sphere.

Marketers hoping to piggy-back the buying power of moms would do well to monitor this phenomenon, as a way of both understanding this valuable segment and creating engaging strategies to reach them. The TwitterMoms network represents a confluence of about 15,000 women. Judging from the types of groups they’ve formed on the site, they are a force – comprised of bloggers, Twitterers, business owners, community leaders and experts in their respective fields. Despite their diverse interests, they have an important commonality: social media is their mouth piece.

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