Photo courtesy of Leslie Duss via Flickr

Over here at CisionBlog, we decided to keep Mother’s Day going and honor all the diaper-changing, hug-giving, relaxation-deserving editors, writers, and bloggers who moonlight as mamas. Using the same methodology as our customizable Influencer Report Briefing Books, we have compiled a list of some of the most influential women who cover parenting topics.

• Barbara Turvett, Working Mother, @barbaraturvett
• Michelle Horton,  Babble.com & early mama,  @earlymama
• Katherine Stone, Postpartum Progress, @postpartumprogr
• Glennon Melton, Momastery, @momastery
• Lydia (Julianna W. Miner), Rants from Mommyland, @MommylandRants
• Trisha Haas, Mom Dot, @momdot
• Jessica Shyba, Momma’s Gone City, @mommasgonecity
• Liz Gumbinner, Mom 101, @mom101
• Stefanie Wilder Taylor, Baby on Bored, @SWilderTaylor
• Nicole Feliciano, Mom Trends, @momtrends

We’re glad to highlight these fearless, fun, tell-it-like-it-is mamas. What parenting blogs do you read for advice and laughs? Who is on your list of most influential mamas?

For more information on utilizing Cision’s Influencer Report Briefing Book to build relationships for your company and clients, contact 866-639-5087.

Photo courtesy of Stock.xchg

It’s time for my weekly round-up of the best blog posts I have seen around the web this past week! Here’s the top five in no particular order…

The Most Overrated Social Media Metric via Convince & Convert

“Do you sell advertising on your website? No? Then why are you so excited about your website traffic?

The most overrated social media metric is traffic from social outposts.

This blog post is symptomatic of this problem, although there have been hundreds (thousands?) like it.

Here’s the highlight:

With only 1% of Facebook’s user count, Pinterest sends 13% of the traffic that Facebook does”.

Read it all..

This is a guest post by Gina Goodman, social media coordinator at Cision Navigator.

After grabbing the number one spot on CisionNavigator’s Top 10 U.S. Mom Bloggers on Twitter  list, we thought we’d catch up with Jessica Gottlieb to find out what she looks for in pitching, what she’d like PR professionals to stop doing and how she utilizes social media. As a mom blogger at her self-titled site, Gottlieb covers parenting and motherhood, the Los Angeles area, fashion, technology, and lifestyle.

Read it all..

Photo courtesy of hectorir via Flickr

Here is our bi-weekly roundup of new talent, account wins and other PR and marketing industry news. Read below to find out about your competitors and friends, and be sure to share comments and discussion points!

• Waggener Edstrom Worldwide has announced new additions to its Asia Pacific regional management team. Matthew Lackie is taking on the newly created role of deputy lead and senior vice president, Asia Pacific. He previously was the senior vice president of South Asia. Along with him, Sarah Jackson joined the staff as regional HR director to recruit and support business expansion in the region. She previously worked at Edelman. Waggener Edstrom can be reached on Twitter or Facebook.
• Edelman has appointed Cornelia Kunze vice chairwoman of Edelman Asia Pacific, and her role will start on Oct. 1. This newly created position emerged to help the company build out its fastest growing region. Kunze will be based in Mumbai. Edelman can be reached via Twitter or Facebook.  Read it all..

This is a guest post from Emily Zimmerman, Internet Media Researcher at Cision. 

Photo courtesy of Dawn Huczek via Flickr

With Mother’s Day less than a week away, dads and children are seeking the best Mother’s Day gifts while mothers are shouting ideal brunch location suggestions and preference of calla lilies over daisies in addition to anticipating a day of pampering and relaxation. Mothers who blog are also preparing for a day of fun but also have the obligation of posting for Mother’s Day. Some bloggers tend to stick with the same type of post each year concerning their own family or possibly a gift guide post. Other mothers search for something a little more unique.  What better way to get an idea or to request one but through Cision’s newest online content community, Seek or Shout.

As mentioned in a previous post, mom bloggers are using Seek or Shout in an effort to reach out to others in the community. They are looking to share content and collaborate with others, along with expecting immediacy and quick returns on information. The opportunity to speak with key influencers and experts is also a benefit. With the onset of Mother’s Day, I wanted to know how a few mom bloggers in particular feel about this site.

Mom bloggers Maria Colaco and Alena Murguia weighed in…

Read it all..

Photo courtesy of liquene via Flickr

It’s time for my weekly round-up of the best blog posts I have seen around the web this past week! Here’s the top five in no particular order…

5 Mobile Trends Brands Need to Watch via Mashable

“If you let your imagination run wild, innovations such asGoogle’s Project Glass suggest there will come a time when we’ll no longer converse with each other, but instead exchange data like a bunch of GPS-enabled cyborgs.

While that may not be quite how it plays out, a highly-connected future is definitely on its way. Already, data shows that more than one third of American teens own an iPhone and the one-tablet-per-child initiative is a mainstay in South Korean and Thai schools. It’s easy to see what life will look like for the next generation of consumers, but will marketers be prepared? That will largely depend on whether they’ve considered these five post-mobile trends.”

Read it all..

Vivek Kundra, EVP emerging markets, Salesforce

“Making a phone call, sending a fax, sending an email. These ways of communicating with companies are broken,” says Vivek Kundra, who served as the first chief information officer of the United States and is now executive vice president of emerging markets for Salesforce.com.

Kundra shared a variety of case studies in companies engaging their customers on the social Web during this morning’s keynote at Salesforce’s Cloudforce Chicago event.

Read it all..

Here’s an interesting fact: although Pinterest only has 7% of the membership that Twitter does, it actually produces nearly as much referral traffic as the micro-blogging juggernaut. And with 10 million active users and growing, the site is shaping up to be a real contender in the social media space.

Here are some tips on how to optimize your Pinterest account to drive more traffic to your Pinterest page and your website.

Add a keyword rich description to your About section

Your profile page is indexed by search engines, and the content you include in your About section makes up the majority of the text content on the page. So use the About section to your advantage. Throw in some great keywords that are specific to you, but broad enough that people actually search on them. This also helps give context to all of the boards you’ve created. Search engines love context. Read it all..

Photo courtesy of Stock.xchng

This blog post originally appeared on Kimber Media.

A community is more than just a one-time marketing campaign. It’s more than Twitter followers and Facebook fans; it’s a place for members to talk to each other and it can sustain itself. It can help you throughout the life of your company if you take the time to grow it correctly.

Here are six steps to get started:

Read it all..

Photo courtesy of Matt From London via Flickr

It’s time for my weekly round-up of the best blog posts I have seen around the web this past week. Here’s the top five in no particular order…

7 Reasons Marketing & Customer Service Need to Work Together via HubSpot Blog 

“If you’ve read our articles on the benefits of sales and marketing alignment, you likely understand the importance of a marketing strategy that leverages cross-departmental collaboration and integration. And we feel no differently about the relationship between Marketing and Customer Service — they should go together like milk and cookies.

The need for a symbiotic marketing/customer service relationship is only more important now, with consumers increasingly turning to social media as a way to communicate with businesses. In fact, according to a recent study from Booz & Company, 75% of marketers using social media identify customer service as a primary use of their social media platform.”

Read it all..