Avon rouged up social media this past February and landed the top spot on Hootsuite Analytics? monthly Love List, which provides marketers with a sentiment score based on social interaction, proving that the makeup brand's word-of-mouth sales strategy is effective even on mobile.

Hootsuite Analytics awards ten brands each month with spots on its list, measuring their strategies by the amount of time users include the word ?love? in a post discussing the brand. Avon was able to take top status thanks to its community of sellers and buyers that were extremely active around Valentine?s Day, while Dove, McDonald?s, Starbucks and Target rounded out the top five.

?The Avon Representative and her social circles have been the core of our business for more than 125 years and we knew we needed to make it easier to bring Avon into every facet of her life,? said Matt Harker, vice president of Avon North America Marketing, New York.

?We have a ?Social Media Center? where our Avon Representatives can log in and access a suite of social media content that they can personalize and share with ease ? online, on their phones, wherever they are ? to help them continue to build relationships with their customers.?

Positive sentiments
Hootsuite found that the top trend of the brands included on the Love List was that of positive sentiments. Users? encouraging posts were able to help feed into new campaigns, garner more love from loyal customers and tie into timely events, such as Valentine?s Day.

Beauty marketer Avon jumped 25 spots from its January Love List ranking by tapping its representatives to be more active during the most romantic holiday of the year, when plenty of consumers were searching for gifts for their significant others. Avon also encourages its sales community to be active on social media in a bid to spread the word about products and gain new clients.

?As a brand, Avon?s grown based on their individual representatives? selling efforts for decades,? said Mark Pascarella, general manager of uberVU via Hootsuite Analytics, Cambridge, MA. ?In some ways, their transition to social selling is such a natural progression from their old business model; those same representatives have become strong brand ambassadors on social, and they?ve fully taken advantage of social media as a selling tool.

?Through their social outreach, Avon and Avon representatives have been able to cultivate a loyal fan base on social media that bumped them right to the top of the Love List.?

Makeup fans used the word ?love? most when discussing Avon and its items on social media, fuelling it to take the top sentiment score.

As the brand provides representatives the ability to run their own businesses with Avon products, it has found social media to be the right engine for word-of-mouth marketing, especially when a consumer-centric holiday such as Valentine?s Day is able to be leveraged.

?Today?s consumer is a multi-channel shopper,? Avon's Mr. Harker said. ?They shop, read reviews , look for how-to information and seek opinions in person and online.

?We want to make sure we?re giving people the ease of choice when it comes to how they communicate with us.?

The Starbucks presence
Although Starbucks hit the number four spot in February, the beverage brand has consistently ranked high on the Love List each month. It was also a top influencer thanks to a celebrity shout-out from singer Taylor Swift and the brand?s quick response to her Tweet.

?Starbucks tends to be a perennial fan favorite, and a big reason for that is that they excel at both planned campaigns and real-time engagement,? Hootsuite Analytics' Mr. Pascarella said. ?Back around the holidays, they topped our list because their red cups and Christmas campaign really connected with fans and got them in the holiday spirit.

?In February, they were able to quickly field a joke from Taylor Swift on Valentine?s Day (who is a gravitational force on social media in her own right) and capitalize on the shout-out with their own funny response. That?s the stuff of social media gold.?

On Valentine?s Day, Ms. Swift Tweeted ?Sending my love to all the lonely Starbucks lovers out there this Valentine's Day.....even though that is not the correct lyric.? The Tweet made light of many people?s belief that a line in her hit song ?Blank Space? contained the phrase ?Starbucks lovers? instead of the correct phrase, ?long list of ex-lovers.?

Starbucks was able to turn this into a mobile moment by Tweeting back at her in mock confusion, saying ?Wait, it?s not??

Starbucks? Tweet was able to gain more than 4,000 Retweets and more than 9,000 favorites. Meanwhile, Ms. Swift?s original Tweet saw more than 113,000 Retweets, resulting in a great example of organic brand awareness for Starbucks.

Dove, which ranked at number two on the February list, also leveraged positive sentiments by ramping up usage of its #SpeakBeautiful hashtag and staffing its social media account with self-esteem experts.

Ultimately, marketers should ensure that they have teams on hand to support mobile moments that may occur during holidays or peak times on social media.

?Our best advice is to have a plan for holidays and events, but always be aware of and ready for in-the-moment opportunities,? Mr. Pascarella said. ?And if Taylor Swift gives your brand a shout-out, you better believe that?s better any pre-planned post.?

Final Take
Alex Samuely is an editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York