Circle of Moms

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Five Questions for Emily C.

Published April 16, 2009 Mom of the Week 3 Comments

emilyc Really, me!?

That was Emily C.’s response when I told her we wanted to profile her on the Circle of Moms blog. She’s the only one who’ll be surprised though. This woman is the friend you wish you had in real life: generous, knowledgeable, and unassuming. Her savvy is felt all over Circle of Moms, in large communities (Young Moms aged 20 -30, Moms with School-aged Kids) and small (Atheist Parenting, Diaper Free Moms). I wanted to know more about Emily and so, taking a page from one of my favorite blogs, I asked her five questions:

1. Circle of Moms: Tell us a bit about your family. Continue reading ‘Five Questions for Emily C.’

Congratulations to Mandy Stevenson!

Published January 28, 2009 Mom of the Week Leave a Comment

Congratulations go out to Mandy for being chosen as our second mom of the week! She is an active part of many communities. She has contributed to 250 conversations!

Mandy Stevenson

Our first Mom of Week, Winnie Stotts, says,

Mandy is very thoughtful and always takes the time to check in on people she has come in contact with through Circle of moms

Mandy has two boys ages eight & two. We appreciate her dedication to Circle of Moms & her friends there.

Community of the Week at Circle of Moms

Published January 23, 2009 Community of the Week Leave a Comment

The first Community of the Week has over 77,500 members! It’s a very active community led by Missy McCalllum. Young Moms Aged 20-30 has moms from all over discussing a variety of topics.

Missy McCallum

The description for the group is:

This is a fun site were all of us can get together and just talk about our kids, husbands, loved ones or just share a good story. We need to have other people our own age that can understand each other and were we come from.

These moms have two things in common: they have young children and are very active. It’s great that Missy has created a community where they can network, share ideas & provide support for each other!

Here’s what Miss had to say about her flourishing community for moms:

Well, first of all thanks so much! It is such a neat honor! I would have to say that I don’t really do much of anything to have such a large group. I think that it is such a great community because everyone can feel like they understand the situation. That’s exactly what I was going for. Young mothers can feel so alone sometimes and I wanted other people feeling the same to have a place to turn to. Again it is the mothers themselves that keep it so active. There are always so many questions and desperate for advice that everyone lends some personal information and that is the key. I myself would always ask my friends first for advice before going to seek advice from doctors or professionals and that is exactly what goes on here! I’m so proud of the group for doing that.

I don’t know what kind of advice I could give (on how to keep a community active). I would say just try to think about what you would want for your group and make it broad enough that other mothers would understand and want to be involved! Not sure how helpful that is, but that’s what I got. Thanks again and remember to stay positive and learn to laugh at yourself, it will get you through anything!!!

Definitely check out the Young Moms Aged 20-30 community!

What is your favorite community at Circle of Moms?

Recognizing our Active Users!

Published January 20, 2009 New Features 1 Comment

One of the comments that we get most frequently from our users is “I love the responses that I get from other Circle of Moms users. How do I know which users are the experts and provide the most trustworthy feedback, though?” This is a great question and we’ve taken it to heart. Today, we released a couple of features that we think will help our users answer this question: user stats and badges! We’re very excited about these new features and are eager to get your feedback on them.

User Stats

This feature is exactly what you’d expect it to be: users can see how frequently people contribute to the Circle of Moms community. Right now we have five items that we measure: conversation posts, conversations started, questions answered, firsts and wall posts.

Circle of Moms Profile with User Statistics

This makes it very easy to see who is active and who is just passing by.

Badges

Badges are a great way for us to reward and recognize our most passionate users. They are a fun and easy way for us to let you know who stands out in the Circle of Moms community and why!

SmartyPants – For moms that have helped other mothers in the past and proven themselves to be wise by giving valuable responses to conversations and questions, we have the SmartyPants badge. These moms are very helpful. If you come across one, feel free to reach out to her with your question; she has helped others in the past, and will most likely help you, too!

Social Butterfly – For moms that are warm and welcoming to the other members of the Circle of Moms community, we have the Social Butterfly badge. One of the aspects of Circle of Moms that we love most is that the community is warm and provides constructive and caring feedback to other moms. The social butterflies create the friendly atmosphere that makes this all possible. Thank you!

Administrator – We have over 2,000 user-created communities and it was the community administrators that made this possible. These women take the initiative to create a community in which moms can share advice, recommendations and empathy. They keep the level of activity in Circle of Moms high and we love them for it.

Mom-trepreneur – We have a deep amount of respect for moms that run their own business and want to support them however we can. The Mom-trepreneur badge identifies those moms who are also businesswomen and have registered their business with Circle of Moms. Once you do this, we will promote your business to the Circle of Moms community and help drive traffic to your site. If you are interested in registering your business, please go to http://www.circleofmoms.com/ad_create.php.

We hope you enjoy these new features. Please let us know what you think of them in the comments!

Moms Discuss Food Allergies

Published January 13, 2009 The Moms' Eye View Leave a Comment

Circle of Moms is a great place to connect with other moms & share ideas & concerns.

A very popular topic is children with food allergies. The ages range from infants on up.

And the allergies to foods are varied.

Moms share how they’re coping with the challenges of dealing with food allergies. And they also share resources where they’ve gotten information & assistance. This can be really helpful when you’re seeking answers or if it’s a new diagnosis.

If you have a child with food allergies you may find one of these groups helpful. There are many conversations that are very helpful.

Kids with Food Allergies - 628 member

Kids/Babies with Food Allergies - 547 members

Raising Children with Food Allergies - 591 members

Moms of Food Allergic Kids

Moms of Kids with Food Allergies

And if you have experience with food allergies or questions, feel free to join the conversations there!

Winnie Stotts is the first MOM of the WEEK at Circle of Moms!

Published January 13, 2009 Mom of the Week 5 Comments

We are excited to congratulate Winnie Stotts as the first Mom of the Week at Circle of Moms!!

Winnie Stots - Mom of the Week

She has made many contributions to Circle of Moms. On a regular basis she:

welcomes new members & answers questions
has started & leads the following active communities: Christian Mommies, Toddler Moms, Stay at Home Moms, and a community in Circle of Moms also called Circle of Moms
generously shares her time & friendship with others.

I asked Winnie to share a bit about her family.

I am a mama of one little boy who is three. His name is Carson. I have been married to my husband Matt for 9 1/2 years. We lived in Wyoming up until May of 08, when we moved to Colorado Springs. We were blessed to add Carson to our family through adoption. We were able to bring him home the day after he was born – which we call “Gotcha Day”. Every year we celebrate his birthday, and then we celebrate the Gotcha Day the day after his birthday. I am able to stay at home with my son every day, which is a blessing as well. There are some long days, and a few boring days, but I enjoy being able to be with him through out all of that.

This is how Winnie got involved with Circle of Moms.

I started through an invite to the application and have enjoyed it ever since. I enjoy getting to know other moms who can relate to exactly where I find myself in the parenting seasons. I am also a part of two of the adoption support communities. We were from such a small town, that adoption was a rare story. I had not really met anyone in my situation before, so these communities have opened my eyes to the different ways that there were so many people in my situation. Most of my really good friends, have been my online friends in Circle of Moms.

I asked Winnie what she likes best about Circle of Moms:

Everyone is so friendly and they open themselves up in ways that make me feel like I can get to know them better. It is a great way to social network when you are home bound with the kids and need some adult conversations. Plus it seems that you can be very open with your questions, and most of the responses are genuine and thoughtful. I appreciate the women I have met here. I also appreciate the time and energy the creators of Circle of Moms have put into making these experiences easy and fun!!

We want to thank Winnie for her generous contributions to the Circle of Moms community. We very much appreciate your efforts!

Moms Provide Seasonal Advice

Published December 16, 2008 Uncategorized 1 Comment

The number of topics being discussed in Circle of Moms is amazing! As fast as they ask questions, other moms provide answers. With the holiday season upon us once discussion caught my attention:

What is the best way to have a Christmas tree with a toddler in the house? And how do you keep little fingers from opening gifts?

Here are some of the best ideas:

use unbreakable ornaments
put stuffed ornaments at the bottom within the child’s reach
one mom is going to decorate her tree with Christmas cards!
put a fence or child’s gate around the tree
use a smaller tree & place it up on a table out of reach

For the gifts there was also a number of suggestions:

one mom buys decorative boxes & uses packing tape
many suggested not putting the gifts out until within a day or so
use the playpen to put the gifts in

You can read all of the ideas here. What are your best ideas for safe & happy holidays?

Calling All Moms!

Published December 10, 2008 Uncategorized 2 Comments

Circle of Moms enables moms to connect in new and unique ways. We have over 2,000 communities that cover a number of different topics, including some that we could never have dreampt up ourselves. The positive response to our product has been overwhelming and we are always looking for moms who are interested in getting involved with the Circle of Moms movement. If you want to help build the community or our business (and have a background in sales or marketing), please contact us. We would love to hear from you.

But back to our communities…here are a few of my favorites.

Some are traditional. We have Stay at Home Moms and Working Moms. Single Moms and Moms with Great Husbands. Toddler Moms and Moms of Kids in College. Playgroups for moms of children born in the same month.

Others are a little more unique. A few of my favorites are: Moms Whose Husbands Work the Oilfields. Gun Toting Mamas. I’m sure there are more, I just can’t think of them.

Take a look at our communities and let us know if you want to be involved.

Advice on Parenting and What Gifts to Buy

Published December 7, 2008 New Features 3 Comments

We want Circle of Moms to be a community that moms use to make their lives easier. After reaching out to lots of moms tofind out what they wanted from a community, we found that two of the most common responses were:

“I have this situation with my family and I am not sure what to do. I want to talk to other moms who have been through it themselves. Help!!”
“I want to buy and use the right products for my child and there are so many choices out there. I’m not sure what the safest and best product is to buy. Can you help?”

Of course there are many other issues that are important to moms, and we will try to build features to address them in the future, but for now we are very focused on these two challenges.

I have this situation with my family and I am not sure what to do. Help!!

You told us that when you have a question about parenting or family life, you value the opinions of other moms. So we created communities to let you connect to different groups of moms depending on the situation. Since we can’t think of every type of community you would want, we also set it up so that you are able to create communities so that you can find other moms out there who are sharing your experiences. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to ask questions, so we placed a question box on the home page.

Not only do you want to talk to other moms, though…you want to talk to the right moms. That is why we added the profile feature. Profiles let you get to know other moms, where they come from, how many children they have and what other advice they have provided to moms. This means that the replies you receive are not anonymous posts to a message board, but personal advice from other moms. You can choose which advice to listen to and which advice to ignore.

I want to buy and use the right products for my child and there are so many choices out there.

What is cool? What is safe? What do you know about <insert product here>? Does it taste good (usually about baby food)? Where can I buy it?

These are some of the most commonly asked questions in Circle of Moms. We want to enable you to help one another.

With the holidays approaching, these questions focus more and more on the right gifts for kids. So we thought that a good place to start was Christmas and Chanukkah gifts. What do moms think is the right gift? What’s good for a toddler or for a pre-teen?? I’m thinking of getting something and I want to know what other moms have to say about it.

This is only the beginning, though. Please let us know how we can improve this!

Our Question to You

Does Circle of Moms help you address these challenges? What else do you want to see in the product?

Welcome to Circle of Moms

Published December 7, 2008 Company News Leave a Comment

Today, we are excited and proud to unveil Circle of Moms to the general public. We have come a long way in the past six months. After speaking with moms across the country and running countless interviews and focus groups, we launched our product at the beginning of October. Since then, our community has grown to a size well beyond what we expected and is thriving and vibrant.

Our goal has been to create an online community that connects moms and enables them to face the challenges of motherhood together. We realize that the product that we have built is not perfect, but think that it is a step towards this goal. We try to listen to you, our users, as closely as possible, so that we can build something that you truly find valuable. What features are working? Which ones aren’t? What can we do to provide a more complete experience for you?

So please reach out to us. Let us know what you think. It can only make our community better. We look forward to getting to know you.

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