Retailers are doing everything in their power to increase traffic for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and many are using social to reach and engage potential shoppers. Customers are turning to Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare to find the best holiday deals, where retailers are offering exclusive deals, interactive quizzes and savings coupons. Retailers are already starting to see their efforts pay off, as comScore reports holiday retail commerce online is up 14% from this time last year.
Check out some big brand social media holiday promotions:
Toys R Us is luring shoppers with a holiday scavenger hunt sweepstakes on Facebook, where players can win a $25 gift card- Walmart offers localized store maps to its Facebook fans to help them navigate deals on Black Friday
- CVS Pharmacy‘s Facebook page features a holiday shopping quiz – if fans complete it, they get a 20% off coupon. CVS is also running gift giveaway contests through Twitter – active followers are entered into drawings for gift cards
- Sears is letting customers vote online for products they want to see on sale throughout the holidays at Sears.com/pick, promoting each voting cycle through Facebook and Twitter
- RadioShack‘s “So wrong, so right” promotion asks Facebook users to upload photos of gifts gone wrong to the “Great Giftervention” Facebook app, for the chance to win a “so right” gift, including an iPad 2 or iPhone 4S. Foursquare users can check in to “so right” places and activities, focused on philanthropy and personal wellness, to unlock a badge that donates $1 to Livestrong (read more in ClickZ)
- on Black Friday, every shopper who checks in to a JC Penney store via Foursquare on triggers a $25 donation (up to $100,000) and today the company introduces QR Santa Tags (free with purchase), which allow shoppers to record a personalized voice message for gift recipients – recipients then use to the code to retrieve the gift message (via MediaPost)
- Finally, fans on the Facebook pages of Amazon‘s specialist sites, Soap.com, Diapers.com, Wag.com (pets) and YoYo.com (toys) can vote in a “Battle of the Brands” for which brand they want 30% off from November 25 (Black Friday) through November 28 (Cyber Monday) – plus, if the app is shared 1,000 times, Amazon will donate $1,000 to the Red Cross (or $2,500 for 2,500 shares), as reported in Social Commerce Today
Many of these stores count on the fact that, if you buy a deal or complete a quiz through Facebook, you’ll share that with your friends, says Scott Silverman, co-founder of digital goods incentives website Ifeelgoods, as reported by USA Today.
These efforts are already seeing results via holiday season e-commerce, and comScore predicts that online retail spending for 2011 will see a 15% increase overall from last year’s season. And 33% of survey respondents said they are seeing more discounts, sales and promotions in the early part of the season vs. last year.
According to comScore’s chairman Gian Fulgoni, some of the e-commerce growth can be attributed to more consumers looking online for better deals, and the shipping convenience (often free with holiday deals) considering the current economic conditions.
And of course there’s the rapid rise of mobile in the holiday shopping scene. TechCrunch reports “all signs point to the fact that this could be the breakout year for mobile shopping” and we’ve already written about how 62% of mobile users will use their smartphone or tablet for holiday shopping. Google forecasts that 15% of total search on Black Friday will come from mobile devices.
