Emily McKhann: Paving the Way for Parent Digital Influencers
Co-Founder, The Motherhood
Twitter: @EmilyMcKhann
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilymckhann
Website: www.themotherhood.com
Bio: Founder of The Motherhood, a network of thousands of influential social media moms and dads and a digital media agency. Helps causes and brands reach and engage women online in creative, powerful ways.
Innovating in Field of Work:
- When Emily co-founded The Motherhood in 2006, the term ‘mom blogger’ did not exist. Since then, she has helped lead the way for women online to be seen as experts in their own lives, to be valued for their voices, opinions, diversity, large and loyal audiences, and their impact. They created the model where non-profits, consumer product companies, and others recognize that one of the most effective ways to reach and engage women – often their most important audience – is through mom bloggers on their social media platforms.
Impact:
- From the day they created their first program in 2006, they paid women bloggers. Now, Emily and team hire thousands of women every year to work on their campaigns.
- Emily has helped many women earn a living without having to leave home and regardless of any demographics that might otherwise have gotten in the way before blogging (geographic location, education level, appearance, etc.).
- Through Emily’s work with numerous causes – the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UN Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and many, many others – she is always looking for ways to increase the power and impact of women’s concerns and voices.
Role Model:
- On the day-to-day level, working in social media with women online who are evolving and growing, Emily uses social platforms in new ways and to examine how she can be a better leader, entrepreneur, and model.
Reinvention / Risk / Momentum
- Mom bloggers were the ones who first turned the web into a place where real connections, insights, support, advocacy, caring and storytelling could happen. Emily believes it is no accident that healthcare was on the presidential platform during President Obama’s first election (in part because because women online were sharing heart-wrenching stories about what it was like to go without insurance and others who had insurance really understood how devastating that was for their friends), and why we’re talking during this election cycle about paid family leave, maternal health, early childhood education and other issues that had been sidelined as ‘women’s issues’ before.
“When the history books are written, we will all look back on the last decade as the time when women found their voices through social media, and because of that, everything changed.”