Black Friday social chatter up 20% over last year: Salesforce

Dive Brief:

Social media mentions of Black Friday are up 20% over last year, according to data from Salesforce Marketing Cloud's Social Studio.
The Social Studio team has been tracking social media conversations leading up to the shopping holiday. Last week, the team found outdoor gear retailer REI's #OptOutside campaign was seeing the most mentions on social after announcing it would close its stores on Black Friday.
This week, the Social Studio team found that Best Buy has overtaken REI in social mentions after launching pre-Black Friday sales in select stores. Best Buy has seen 164K mentions to REI's 74K.

Dive Insight:

Salesforce Marketing Cloud's Social Studio team has been tracking conversations on social media ahead of the Black Friday shopping holiday weekend. With less than two weeks to go, consumers are taking to their social media accounts to talk brands and the big day.

Data out of the Social Studio shows that between Oct. 1 and Nov. 10, there were over 619K Black Friday mentions on social media – more than 20% higher than 2014.

"Smart marketers will hone in on the conversations and topics where they see the opportunity to make the biggest impact," Tom Hasselman, senior manager of product marketing at Salesforce, points out in a blog post.

Due to the spike in conversations, marketers have to get clever with their holiday messaging, making sure to push out clear and inviting content that will inspire target audiences to engage with them. That being said, higher volumes, Hasselman noted, offer marketers more chances to chime in.

"Marketers who know when conversation and interest begins can get a jump on the competition by timing campaigns at the beginning of the awareness cycle," Hasselman said.

Justin Sparks, director of digital strategies and solutions at programmatic ad tech firm Collective, recently told Marketing Dive that smart marketers will focus on mobile this holiday season.

“The smartphone is the holiday shopper’s constant, trusted resource in offline and online moments along the path to purchase,” he said. “Marketers need an always-on mobile strategy that meets shoppers with the right resources when they are looking for info (reviews, coupons), and uses mobile to attribute things like offline store visits after being exposed to a digital campaign.”