News

The Motherhood Recognized as One of Pittsburgh’s Fastest-Growing Companies

August 21, 2015 by The Motherhood

The Motherhood is honored to be recognized as one of Pittsburgh’s fastest-growing companies! Last night, The Motherhood was named to the Pittsburgh 100 Class of 2015, a Pittsburgh Business Times program that recognizes the 100 organizations with the largest rate of growth over a three-year period from 2012 to 2014.

The Motherhood was ranked #41 overall and sixth in the consulting and professional services category. The Motherhood is also the second-fastest-growing marketing company in Pittsburgh, and we were one of just two companies in the top 50 with 10 or fewer employees!

As the 100 organizations represented last night have proven, Pittsburgh has transformed from a steel town to a region that is leading advancements in the technology, robotics, healthcare, biomedical technology, finance and education industries. We couldn’t be prouder to be included in such amazing company.

After the awards ceremony, a reception was held to celebrate all the Pittsburgh-area honorees.

In June, The Motherhood received the news that we were named one of Pittsburgh’s fastest-growing companies. The list ranks the fastest-growing private companies in the region, with a rapid growth rate of 30 percent or more between 2012 and 2014.

Congratulations to all the companies named to this year’s Pittsburgh 100 List! 2015 has been such an exciting year for our team and we can’t wait to see what comes next!

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?

Summer of Social Media Trends: Live Video, Search & Explore and Project Lightning News

July 22, 2015 by The Motherhood

While summer is a time for relaxation and vacations, new social media trends continue to crop up, and activity isn’t slowing down! In fact, people share 22 percent more frequently during the summer than in any other season. It has been a big summer in the social media world. Read about latest updates and trends in The Motherhood’s Social Media Round-Up below!

Meerkat’s cameo feature is bringing new ways to unite brands and influencers through real-time video. This feature allows a user to invite watchers to take over his or her live stream for up to 60 seconds, then notify his or her Twitter followers and Facebook friends about the cameo.

Source: The Next Web

This has huge potential to get influencers and their followers involved in real-time conversations with brands, and provides a new interactive alternative to Twitter parties.

Did you know that 63 percent of Facebook and Twitter users turn to social media to stay current on live events and hot-button issues, outside those related to friends and family? That number is sure to grow with Twitter’s fresh news feature, Project Lightning (name subject to change). The new service will allow anyone (Twitter users or not) to view a feed of tweets, images and videos about live events as they happen, curated by employees with “newsroom experience.”

Source: BuzzFeed

Project Lightning will unlock never-before-reached potential for brands, too. Users will potentially be able to follow events without following other users, allowing brand tweets to be blended into several timelines and, more importantly, reach those who aren’t Twitter users.

Instagram is changing the way people use the app by allowing users to step out of their bubble and into trending topics and places. In late June, Instagram rolled out features including a new Search & Explore feature, which makes finding interesting and trending photos from all over the world easier.

“The new Explore now surfaces trends as they emerge in real-time, connecting you to events and conversations both near you and around the globe,” the company wrote on its blog.

Source: Fast Company

Brands can capitalize on these new features, and the massive (100 percent) organic reach and high engagement of Instagram by getting involved with the latest trends.

Which of these features do you think are here to stay? Let us know in the comments!

10 Takeaways from Social Media Day Pittsburgh 2015

July 1, 2015 by The Motherhood

For the second year in a row, The Motherhood has been excited to participate in Social Media Day Pittsburgh hosted by Smith Brothers Agency. Across the globe, June 30 is a designated as a day to celebrate social media, and this year, 150+ of Pittsburgh’s most influential social media professionals gathered to discuss “Using Social Media for Social Good.”

After open networking, the speaker line-up began with Holly Byers, manager of brand partnerships at Pinterest. During her keynote address, she shared a preview of the exciting developments that have just launched or will be introduced soon, including buyable pins and cinematic pins. She also shared some tips and best practices. We were fascinated to learn that there is truly no “ideal” time of day to pin and that the average pin is re-pinned 11 times!

Then, the audience heard rapid-fire case studies from a panel of presenters (including our very own Cooper Munroe!) on how they’ve used social media to effect change for social good.

The Motherhood team took to Twitter to share key learnings in real time using the hashtag #SMDayPGH. Additionally, here are some of our favorite tweetable trends and news from each of the 10 speakers, courtesy of our fellow professionals who attended Social Media Day Pittsburgh.

Holly Byers, Manager, Brand Partnerships at Pinterest via @GatesmanDave

Dee Stathis, P3R & Dick’s Sporting Goods Marathon, via @KaitorTot

Virginia Montanez, Pitt Girl, via @AppleBoxStudios

Leah Lizarondo, 412 Food Rescue, via @SmithBrosAgency

Cooper Munroe, The Motherhood, via @sugaraunts

Kelsey Halling, Thread, via @c_leveled

Bill Fuller, Big Burrito, via @TheBrandternExp

Brian Conway, NEXT Pittsburgh, via @PghMomtourage

Jacob Minton, Pittsburgh 311, via @SptLghtPGH

Heather Hopson, Allies for Children, via @TheMotherhood

Social Media Day Pittsburgh was an inspiring and energizing way to celebrate all of the good that can come out of social media and to get a peek at what’s to come in our region and on the larger social landscape. Our warmest thanks to Smith Brothers Agency for hosting and to our fellow social media friends for connecting with us and sharing your thoughts!

The Motherhood Named to the 2015 Pittsburgh 100 List of Fastest-Growing Companies!

June 19, 2015 by The Motherhood

The Motherhood is so proud to announce that we have been named to the 2015 Pittsburgh 100 List of Fastest-Growing Companies by the Pittsburgh Business Times. The list ranks the fastest-growing private companies in the region, with a rapid growth rate of 30 percent or more between 2012 and 2014.

In August, The Motherhood will be recognized at a ceremony to celebrate this success, along with other Pittsburgh-area honorees. The recognition comes on the heels of another achievement by The Motherhood team: In March, Co-Founder Cooper Munroe was named a 2015 BusinessWomen First Winner by the Pittsburgh Business Times, which honors the top female executives who are leading the way for other professional women while making a difference in the western Pennsylvania business community.

We’ll blog about the ceremony in August, so stay tuned for more exciting news from one of Pittsburgh’s fastest-growing companies!

Image courtesy of the Pittsburgh Business Times.

New in Social Media: Buyable Pins and Targeting Features

June 5, 2015 by The Motherhood

Pinterest and Instagram had a big week in the social media world. Read what they have in store in The Motherhood’s social media round-up!

Pinterest to Enter E-commerce Sector with Buyable Pins

Pinterest’s long-awaited ‘buyable pins’ feature was announced earlier this week, providing an option for users to browse and purchase items directly on the social media site.

Pretty soon, iOS products will begin to show blue ‘buy it’ buttons on pins from retailers like Macy’s and Neiman Marcus, and consumers will be able to purchase products with a credit card or Apple Pay. Users will even be able to search for products by price.

Pinterest founder and CEO Ben Silbermann said, “Pinterest is already designed to work like a catalogue, so we wanted to find a way to weave buyable pins into the pages people already know. Buyable pins are a simple and secure way to buy the products you love right from inside Pinterest.”

Photo Credit: Pinterest

Pinterest will not receive a profit from items sold through the new feature, nor will merchants be charged a fee to use the platform. Pinterest hopes this model will generate revenue by selling promoted buyable pins and ads.

Instagram Announces Direct-Response Ads, New Targeting Features

Instagram continues to build momentum with its ad platforms and is looking to offer more business-driven results for advertisers. The photo-sharing site plans to roll out ads that will allow its users to take action directly on a single-photo ad by signing up on a website, purchasing a product or downloading an app.

Like its parent company Facebook, Instagram will begin targeting consumers based on demographics and interests, allowing advertisers to reach niche audiences on the app.

Similarly, Instagram will follow in Facebook’s footsteps and use their infrastructure for buying, managing and measuring of ads’ success on the app. Instagram plans to make their advertising features available through an Instagram Ads API and Facebook ad buying interfaces.

Tell us your thoughts on these developments in the comments!