Successfully marketing to women requires embracing social science.  Here are the essential female behavioral insights about emotions that’ll help your brand develop relationships with women through social media content.

Women & Emotions — When the brain processes stimuli from the outside world, information gets dumped more quickly into the amygdala, (the emotional part of the brain), than it does the cortex, (logic central). Our emotions get first dibs on reacting to things before the cortex can even catch up.

This is amplified for a woman because she has 36 emotional outposts in her brain and they’re all interconnected.  A man has only 4, with no interconnectivity.

When a woman’s emotions are activated, they’ll remain activated for a while.  This is the period of time that she’ll share with her friends and family – either positive or negative emotions – on social media.

“I’m Mad!” — If she’s unhappy about an experience she had with your brand, you’ll need to attempt to shut down some of the negativity being pinged around in her brain . . . fast, before it continues to accelerate and spread.

Respond Quickly — We all know that social media’s real-time attributes have resulted in demanding response time expectations.  A recent study found that 32% of women customers who post a negative brand experience on social media expect a response within 30 minutes.

Although a 30-minute response time may seem unrealistic, it’s what your women customers are expecting.  They want to be heard, acknowledged and wooed by your brand.  If ignored entirely, they’ll turn elsewhere.

She Wants To Forgive — If you don’t respond within 30 minutes, it doesn’t mean that all hope is lost because empathy is a fundamental female trait.  When a woman has a relationship with your brand, she wants to forgive and forget . . . but you’ve got to make an effort.  A recent study indicates that 51% of women customers who received a response within 3 days had a positive reaction to the brand and 22% then posted a positive comment about the brand.

But, beware . . . 50% of women who did not hear back from a brand after sharing their negative experiences on social media indicate they won’t purchase that brand or use that service again.

 “I’m Happy!” — When a woman’s emotions are positively activated, she’ll tell her friends.  They’ll share it with their friends, and so on . . . you get the idea.  Some male comedians have created entire comedy routines about what makes women happy.  Here’s what you need to know to positively activate her emotions.  Seriously.

Engage Her — Women’s highest priorities are her family, friends, home, career and life goals.  Share a story with her about these subjects and ask her how she feels about it.  Because your story is relevant to her life and she likes to be asked her opinion, she’ll respond.  That’s when active engagement begins – which is essential for building long-term relationships.

Help Her — Women actively seek out interesting and informative content that helps them accomplish day-to-day goals.  One of the daily struggles women experience is being “time-starved.”  Share a story with her about how your brand can save her time or make her life easier.  The most effective way is to share the story through women’s experiences.

Make Her Laugh — Women laugh more than twice as much as men.  Women’s humor grows out of female gender culture.  It operates on the dynamic of identifying with the person in the humorous situation.  Women enjoy recognizing the similarities and laughing at themselves.

Women & Bonding — Emotionally bonding with women will help your brand develop long-term relationships with them.  However, women need to trust your brand.  Researchers have found that females have more activity in the part of the brain responsible for gut feelings and intuition and they also have more activity in the limbic or emotional and bonding areas of the brain.

Women & Empathy — Women are owning and shaping social media to better suit their needs and share their opinions.  Brands need to develop relevant content and make recommendations that fit into their life, their needs and desires.  To build long-term relationships with women, always demonstrate empathy without patronizing her.