Amelia Nielson-Stowell: Mormon moms connect through blogs

Mom bloggers are the niche for the site Blog Frog, where bloggers can set up forum pages to interact with readers. There are 35,000 mom blogs on their network, reaching 2 million women every month.

"Mom blogs were a perfect fit," said Blog Frog creator Rustin Banks, who started the company in 2008 after watching comments on his wife's personal blog spur into various tangents. "Naturally, they're a very sought-after market for these targeted communities because they're so powerful."

Religious lifeline

Many Mormon bloggers can trace their blogging start to a talk by Elder M. Russell Ballard in which he encouraged Latter-day Saints to blog about their religion.

"When Elder Ballard gave that talk in 2008, it exploded," said Scharton, who's better known as "Motherboard" in the blogging community for her blog wheredidiputthat.blogspot.com.

"I really see (blogs) as a way the church will move things forward," she said. "It's a way to make our religion more about the individual and less about the institution."

Jenny Proctor, a North Carolina mother of five who blogs at mommysnark.blogspot.com, doesn't find many young moms in her small LDS branch. Instead, she finds that online.

"I'm certainly a mother, certainly a Mormon and certainly a blogger. And I'm proud of that," Proctor said. "It's the deeper meaning of why motherhood is important, why womanhood is important. It makes us feel like what we're doing is valuable."

These women have built a community of friends to share deeper life topics — infertility, the death of a child or postpartum depression.

Logan resident Loralee Choate, who blogs at loraleeslooneytunes.com, found a support base in the blogging world. Choate posts about her grief process over the death of her 4-month-old son.

"I wish I had a blog when I was a younger mom," she said. "I attempted suicide after my son's death, and I don't think it would have happened with this community around me."

Choate is not active in the Mormon faith, which she said made her nervous about speaking at the conference.

"But it's so important in this community to have it talked about," she said.

e-mail: astowell@desnews.com

Casual Blogger Conference by the numbers

2,000 — Blogs registered on Mormon Mommy Blogs

375 — Conference attendees

55 — Speakers

28 — Sponsors

250 — Pedicures and manicures given at Girl's Night Out