How can brands stand out on social this shopping season?

 

The term “Black Friday” was coined in the 1960s where “Black” refers to stores moving from the “red” to the “black,” back when accounting records were kept by hand, and red ink indicated a loss, and black ink meant that there was a profit made. The term “Cyber Monday” was first debuted in 2005 in a press release by the National Retail Federation (NRF). According to the press release, 77% of online retailers had seen their sales “increase substantially” on Cyber Monday. Cyber deals were assigned to Monday instead of Saturday because people enjoy shopping while returning to work, using high-speed internet connections.

To get a feel for market interest around Cyber Monday vs Black Friday, brands can conduct social media intelligence analysis to personalize offers to fit their audience’s interests. With social listening tools, brands create more targeted online Black Friday and Cyber Monday ad campaigns based on social data such as interests, age, location, gender, and much more. These valuable demographics provide brands with the insight they need to figure out where to spend their marketing budget. Leverage the power of social media throughout the shopping weekend to make some extra sales and drive more traffic towards your brand.

Cyber Monday vs Black Friday 2018: Which one is taking the lead?

Mentions of Black Friday significantly outweigh mentions of Cyber Monday for this year. Synthesio’s social listening data shows the term “Black Friday” gathering over one million mentions from the last month alone, whereas Cyber Monday accounted for only 10% of the total mentions.

The focus is primarily put on Black Friday this year according to our social listening platform. Cyber Monday 2018 is not receiving much attention. Digging deeper into the Cyber Monday mentions, it is evident that most people are gearing their shopping plans toward Black Friday only. In my opinion, this may have to do with the fact that many people are required to return to their day jobs on Monday, whereas people mostly take off on the day after Thanksgiving. Most people will not find time during the workday on Monday to gear their attention towards Cyber deals. However, they will have the entire day on Black Friday to get their hands on the best sales.

 

Lululemon has taken advantage of what people are saying about their brand and is using this to make sure that their customers are heard. This is a great marketing approach because their reply to this tweet reinforces a strong brand-consumer relationship and establishes brand loyalty. Customers are more likely to open their wallets to brands that they feel care about them. Brands like Lululemon can take advantage of social conversations around their products and use them to gather consumer insights. Creating powerful marketing campaigns and tracking them effectively is an increasingly critical component of a digital strategy — primarily driven by Return On Marketing Investment (ROMI).

 

Some users are turning to Twitter to express their discontent with specific retail store sales methods. Express should use this feedback to implement better sales strategies in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. By conducting social media intelligence analysis, Express can turn this social data into actionable consumer insights and improve on their sales strategies. This will also help them determine where to spend their marketing budget.

Analyzing conversations across social media isn’t the only way to measure the success of a marketing campaign as buzz can be positive or negative. To get a better understanding of public opinion towards your campaign looking at sentiment can be very useful. Overall, sentiment towards Black Friday is more positive than negative, especially on certain media types such as Twitter, Instagram, and news outlets:

By using metrics for conversations such as social, engagement, and sentiment, brands can understand the impact their marketing campaigns are having on the social public. They can then use this data to refocus activity, prevent negative buzz around their campaigns or reach out to influencers to help boost content reach.

Walmart is using social to their advantage to promote Black Friday deals early. Through our social listening platform, we can see that Walmart has shared their Black Friday sales strategy early with their followers. They chose an artistic marketing strategy to share their Black Friday plan with their followers (example below).

Demographics

We know that social mentions are on the rise, but who is part of the online conversation? According to a Holiday Outlook Report conducted by PwC, “Millennials (ages 18-34) — who represent 75 million consumers — are the retail bonanza this holiday season.” Additionally, it is predicted that “Almost 60% of (Millennials) will shop online or in-store on Thanksgiving Day compared with a third of shoppers age 35 and older.” This is consistent with our social media intelligence analysis based on the share of users across social media. As shown below, we determine that the majority of Black Friday shoppers in 2018 will be between the ages of 18 and 25.

Audience Interests

What are your audience’s interests amidst the calendar year’s busiest shopping weekend? Using an “insights tree” to discover the topics that people are discussing on social media assists in narrowing your marketing campaign ideas and catering to your customers’ interests accordingly. From this insight tree, we can see that the discussion around Black Friday includes topics such as the holidays, sales, Apple, and games. From this, we can determine that users are looking to get their holiday shopping done early and are interested in Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on Apple products and video games. Looking at the top themes linked to Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals unveils customer shopping preferences and interests.

Consumers will regularly tap into social channels to reach their favorite brands or find more great deals. By incorporating social media intelligence analysis, retailers can make shopping more efficient and exciting for consumers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Listening to the conversations that customers are having across social media provides retailers with insight on where to target their campaigns and marketing budget.

Learn more about Social Media Intelligence.