The world, and the media camped out in front of London’s St. Mary’s hospital, has been waiting for months for the arrival of the latest member of the British royal family. At last, yesterday the baby’s birth was announced. Social media lit up as posts flew about the #RoyalBaby. To those of you who somehow missed it. #itsaboy! As you can see from the word cloud below, there was lots of discussion leading up to the birth about the baby, the baby’s parents, other royal family members, the hospital and the fact that the baby will be third in line to the British throne.
Once the baby was born, discussion on social channels revolved around announcing the birth, sending well wishes to the royal family or speculating about the potential name of the new prince. The palace announced that the name of the new baby will be announced “in due course”. Prince William’s parents, Prince Charles and Princess Diana took a whole week to announce his name. Social media users weighed in with some ideas. A sample of the suggestions for the royal baby are Buchingham, Coolio, Prince, and “anything but Henry”. Talk about crowdsourcing! Several Tweets suggested that a modern baby needs a hashtag in their name these days. Hmm. Not sure about that one.
Brands got in on the action as well. Oreo posted a picture of a baby bottle with an oreo next to it. Coke, Nintendo, Delta, Starbucks, Pampers sent their well wishes to the new baby – with a plug for their products of course.
But my favorite Tweet comes from Professor Snape of Harry Potter fame. Yes, this cracked me up. I literally laughed out loud. Glad to see some are keeping a sense of humor about all this!
Laura van Dijken is the Director of Product Marketing at Visible. She is a product development, strategy and marketing executive with over fifteen years combined digital and product experience working with Fortune 100 brands. 
