Mother’s Day: Grocery giants see social success
Supermarkets ruled the 2018 Mother’s Day roost when it came to social media marketing, according to research by SocialBakers.
Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Asda took the top spots for the posts with the most social media interactions, racking up 75,000 between them. While Morrisons focused on discount liqueur, reaching a total of over 25,000 interactions, Sainsbury’s and Asda’s efforts had a more emotional hook that connected with Facebook’s audience. Meet Tori, the mother of triplets for whom Sainsbury’s built a bespoke triple-seater trolley, and Tina, “like a mum” to her Asda colleague Susan, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. There were over 25,000 likes and more than 2,500 ‘love’ reactions for Sainsbury’s efforts, with Asda not far behind.
“After Facebook changed the algorithm to prioritise engagement over reach, astute marketers know that to perform on Facebook in 2018, they must better understand the sub-segments of their audience and target them with more personalised content that will drive engagement. This is exactly what Asda and Sainsbury’s have done this Mother’s Day by focusing their campaigns on relatable and personal stories,” says Moses Velasco, Chief of Strategy at SocialBakers.
Competitions to win products dominated the top ten most interacted posts on Mother’s Day last year. These prioritised sharing and mass appeal to generate interactions. This year, brands who understood their audience and served them relevant, timely and human-led campaigns gained the favour of Mums.
As for 2019, SocialBakers is predicting the rise of live video. “It’s organic, free and it has a proven record of being much more engaging than any other type of content,” says Velasco. “While publishers have started to use live video more often, brands are still lagging behind. Brands that adopt live now will benefit from a greater mindshare and will not lose out as a result of the changes to the Facebook algorithm. The barrier to going live is no longer technical, but mainly stems from concerns about not being ‘perfect’. As authenticity continues to drive engagement, brands should not limit their content creation in this way, and should aim to “go live” on Mother’s Day 2019.”
