Brands

What Facebook Reactions Means for Brands

October 29, 2015 by The Motherhood

Soon you’ll have the option to do more than simply “like” a Facebook post. Chris Cox, chief product officer, announced earlier this month that the social media company would be rolling out six reaction buttons that users can select to respond to posts. These reactions include “love,” “yay,” “haha,” “wow,” “angry” and “sad.” Facebook Reactions are currently being tested in Ireland and Spain, but the company reported that it plans to have this feature available to everyone soon.

Facebook Reactions Icons — Photo source: TechCrunch

Facebook realizes that not every post is a “likable” one (hence the popular demand for a “dislike” button). But Facebook took a potential “dislike” button a step further, because as founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the corporate town hall last month, “What [users] really want is the ability to express empathy.” As a result, Facebook consulted sociologists to help narrow down the range of human emotions when reading posts so it could implement the Reactions. The end goal was to create an easier way for people to express themselves without having to post a comment.

While it isn’t new for brands to be listening and acting on consumer conversations online, how brands are listening will always be changing. The new Facebook Reactions feature will provide brands and marketers with a new way to evaluate sentiment among their audiences.

Going beyond a mere “like” or “dislike” offers a deeper look at what consumers think, feel and want from brands. By knowing how their consumers respond emotionally to content, companies can use the data to alter products, campaigns or even the tone of their content. Read what some marketers are saying about Facebook Reactions here.

For now, each reaction will be treated the same as a “like” in the Facebook algorithm, but this could change in the future. A reaction represents a higher level of engagement from users, as it takes more time than simply liking a post, but gives options to those who may not generally take the time to type a comment.

Richard Sim, Facebook’s director of monetization product marketing, recommends that brands not create sponsored posts to try and gain certain reactions. Sim said, “At the end of the day, for a business we want you to post things that you know are going to drive business value for you, and optimizing for loves really isn’t the right business value for you.”

It will be interesting to see how brands use the Facebook Reactions data from their consumers once this feature is live.

Are you looking forward to using the Facebook Reactions buttons?

Survey Findings Uncover Moms’ Most Trusted Brands [Infographic]

October 19, 2015 by The Motherhood

Online reviews and social media word-of-mouth platforms have led to the age of the connected shopper. Consumers turn to friends, family and online reviews for advice prior to purchase, and specifically, more than 63 percent of moms ask other moms for advice and consider them the most credible experts when they have questions. With access to all this information, 76 percent of consumers develop opinions about a brand long before they reach the point of purchase.

So, which brands are getting it right?

In March 2015, The Motherhood asked more than 320 moms in the United States which household brands they most trusted. Unaided questions delivered unprompted and top-of-mind opinions and statements to capture the truest consumer opinions, attitudes and most likely actions. Here’s what we learned:

In northern states, the most trusted makeup brand is CoverGirl, but in southern states, M.A.C. is the most trusted brand.
OshKosh is the most trusted baby/kids’ clothing brand. [The Motherhood has worked with OshKosh on several past sponsored blog tours. Read about our award-winning campaign around back-to-school style here.]
Moms who shop at boutique-style kids’ clothing stores are most likely to name Luvs brand and cloth diapers as their most trusted diapers.
LEGO is the most trusted kids’ toy brand in the Midwest.
Kroger is the most trusted grocery store.
The second most trusted laundry detergent brand, ALL, is most likely to be trusted in conjunction with Lysol cleaning products.
AT&T subscribers are the most likely to list Apple (iPhone) as their top trusted phone brand.

The Motherhood’s clients include a number of the brands moms named as their most trusted, such as: Aveeno, Neutrogena, OshKosh B’gosh, Carter’s, Walmart, Kellogg’s, Clorox, Lysol and Seventh Generation.

Check out the full infographic below to learn more about our survey findings on moms’ most trusted brands:

Did you find any of the survey results interesting or surprising? Let us know in the comments!

Tips for a Successful Brand Event: The Laughing Cow

September 4, 2015 by The Motherhood

The Motherhood recently attended a beautifully executed local influencer event in Seattle, hosted by The Laughing Cow. (Their spreadable wedges of cheese have been a staple in our Pittsburgh HQ’s communal snack stockpile for years.)

Based on what we saw, we’ve compiled a few tips for a successful brand event:

Provide added value. During the event, attendees had the opportunity to partake in several brief workshops appealing to a variety of interests. While they all related to the “Reinvent Snacking” event theme, each provided an engaging twist to offer participants useful and interesting takeaways going beyond snacktime.

For example, the expert host of one workshop provided food photography tips and gave participants a chance to get hands-on, providing colorful patterned napkins, plates, The Laughing Cow cheese wedges and other accessories to mix and match as they took photos (and, incidentally, shared them on Instagram).

In another workshop, to share a taste and convenience message, one local chef demonstrated unique ways of combining sweet and savory flavors with cheese and crackers using leftovers you might find in your refrigerator. Then he gave participants the opportunity to create and enjoy their own pairings.

Give social cues. At a brand event, strategic reminders about the event hashtag and company social handles are key to interacting with influencers and bringing your messaging to the virtual masses. The Laughing Cow had its bases covered with a live feed of #ReinventSnacking social posts projected on the event wall and table signs reminding attendees to tag @TheLaughingCow on Twitter or @TheLaughingCowUSA on Instagram.

Find an appropriate event space. For events, as with real estate, location is key. Before deciding on a location, you should think about your goals – for example, is your event open to the public, or do you have a select group of invitation-only guests? What kind of atmosphere do you hope to cultivate to help highlight the brand’s “personality” – festive, high-end, playful? The Laughing Cow hosted its event at the Fremont Foundry, a multi-level, industrial chic space in a hip neighborhood that reinforced the brand as a sophisticated snack choice.

Give guests a way to take your brand with them. Before leaving, event-goers received The Laughing Cow-branded tote bags filled with materials to help them keep the event experience and tasty snacks top of mind even after returning home.

The Motherhood received an invitation to The Laughing Cow event, but these tips for a successful brand event are not sponsored. All opinions are our own.

Social Listening and Insights: What It Means for Brands

August 18, 2015 by The Motherhood

As social media evolves, and continues to generate vast amounts of data, the question is no longer, “Should I be collecting this material?” but rather, “How can I turn it into valuable insights for my brand, company, or product?” Consumers share opinions, experiences and preferences online on a daily basis. Are you listening to what they have to say?

Social listening can have a variety of useful applications for brands:

Customer service
Understanding brand health
Source of relationship building
Inspiration from real customers
Competitive benchmarking
Evaluating campaigns
Understanding when, why and how your customers make purchasing decisions

There are thousands of fantastic social listening tools to choose from to implement any of the above applications. However, most companies still struggle to anticipate what their most valued customers will do next.

It is crucial to understand the context around individuals posting about your product or brand and to always keep in mind who your key demographic is. Companies must put in place effective strategies and clearly defined goals for managing social listening and data analyzation to create valuable insight.

There have been some exciting developments in the world of social media listening and insight recently; here are a few highlights!

In a continued push for privacy, Facebook shut down access to hashtags through their API. Services which plug into the social network are no longer able to access hashtag data and statistics, and third-party tools are no longer able to provide public content from Facebook via hashtags at all through the API. However, Facebook will provide audience data for marketer insights through Topic Data, exclusively working with DataSift to pull in data from posts on the social network anonymously. Third-party tools are beginning to work with DataSift to bring this functionality to their own platforms as well.

DataSift’s method has smoothed the ongoing complications of searching through private posts by the more than 1.5 billion active users on Facebook. While respecting privacy, DataSift pulls in public and private posts from Facebook enabling companies to analyze everything that is being shared. Private posts on Facebook are now accessible by brands, anonymously, but this has opened up a new world of more accurate social listening.

Twitter recently announced the development of a new API that will allow brands to access every tweet ever! Thats more than 500 billion tweets over nine years! This development will exponentially increase the ability to analyze conversations on the platform.

Tumblr’s latest deal with software firm Crimson Hexagon gives the firm real-time data from the site’s more than 24 million blogs and gives brands a live view on standard information such as popular topics, brand mentions and brand sentiment.

Sentiment analysis is also a huge part of social media monitoring. While every platform seems to have a different method of categorizing sentiment, we can agree its important to know more than just the number of conversations about your brand or industry. For effective listening we also need to understand how people are interpreting messaging and in what context they’re talking about various topics.

Do you know how consumers interpret your online messaging? IBM wants you to be able to tell how your tone comes across in written communications. Recently, Big Blue unveiled Watson Tone Analyzer, you can test the demo out here!

Social data from customer conversations online provides brand, product and consumer insights that can be applied to everyday business and marketing decisions. Social media is a source of rich, real-time data, so get your customers and market talking! You might find your customers know more about your brand or product than you think.

The Motherhood is deeply tapped into moms online. For The Motherhood, data is human and data informs all we do. We pay close attention, listen to, aggregate and analyze what moms are saying, what engages them, what they care about, how and when they share, how and what they buy and the actions they take. We can learn so much from moms online by simply listening.

Do you have a strategy in place to analyze the boundless amount of information about your brand and industry available on social media?

The Motherhood’s 5 Top Tips for Bloggers Working with Brands

May 21, 2015 by The Motherhood

Over the years, The Motherhood has worked with thousands of bloggers on hundreds of campaigns for brands. As companies have recognized and embraced the influence of the online community, opportunities for ambassadorships and sponsored posts have increased dramatically.

When you work with brands, PR agencies and blogger networks (like The Motherhood), there are a few things you can remember to make a great impression and get yourself hired again and again.

In a nutshell, the advice from our team is be professional. When you’re hired to write a sponsored post, treat it like you would any other job: Be reliable, communicate with your team, read your emails thoroughly, meet deadlines and follow through on your commitments ethically and respectfully.

If you want to stand out in the business of blogging, take a peek at The Motherhood’s five top tips for bloggers working with brands:

1) Be professional. When you make a commitment to a brand or network to participate in a sponsored campaign, it’s important to deliver. That includes showing up on time for events like Twitter parties, meeting post deadlines, responding promptly (within one business day) to emails and providing email updates if something comes up that might hinder your ability to honor those commitments.

2) Think like a brand. See your posts from their perspective. Often, brand representatives and marketers are on the hunt for great coverage they can highlight for their executive team. Take pride in your work, and imagine how you want your post to look if it ends up in front of the company CEO. For example:

Read the campaign guidelines and requirements carefully, and incorporate the suggested links, key messaging and images in your coverage.
Do not search Google Images for content – it often pulls up outdated photos or logos. Ask your contact instead for brand images; they’d be happy to help.
Proofread to ensure there are no errors or typos in your post before you click “publish.”
Make sure brand names are spelled correctly and include capital letters and proper trademarking if needed.
In your personal photos of the brand’s products, check the background to make sure there are no other brand names or logos visible.

3) Go above and beyond. If you really want to shine, don’t just do the bare minimum! When you’re writing, be creative and tell your own story about the brand while incorporating their key messaging; brands aren’t interested in posts that simply copy and paste their bullet points. Publish your coverage before the day of the deadline and consider throwing in a couple of extra social media posts. Look up the campaign hashtag on Twitter and re-tweet a few times or start a relevant conversation using the hashtag – engagement matters.

4) Blog with integrity. When you’re invited to blog on behalf of a brand, it’s important to disclose work you’ve done (or are currently doing) for brand competitors before opting in. (In this case, it’s easier on everyone if you ask permission up front rather than forgiveness later!) In your blog coverage, remember to properly attribute photographs if they aren’t your own, provide links to source materials as needed and add a disclosure notice at the top of your post, per FTC guidelines.

5) Build respectful relationships. The most productive relationships between brands or networks and bloggers are ones built on mutual respect and open dialogue. For example, if you opt in for a campaign with a brand and begin to realize that particular program is not a good fit for your blog, you should feel comfortable sharing that feedback behind the scenes. Your honesty and discretion will be remembered.

Bring your best self to your work and business relationships, and it will make a difference. We hope you find these tips on working with brands helpful, and we hope to work with you through The Motherhood soon!