Social moms and health: A multi-platform analysis of mommy communities

The explosion of online social media has increased people´s ability to share content and link with others, thus allowing diverse communities to emerge naturally as a product of interaction among participants. Mothers have certainly not been foreign to this development. Many have embraced the new technology to share experiences, thoughts, current events, reactions, and tips with their peers. Recognizing the role of mothers as decision-makers in their families, especially in the context of health, we focus our attention on “mommy-communities” in Twitter and the blogosphere. We consider what health topics are discussed by mothers in these communities, identify and compare implicit affinities to explicit links, and highlight differences and similarities across the two social media platforms.