Mobile-first shopping is up 24% over the past year and more than half of consumers (58%) say social media directly influences their purchasing decisions. In response, retailers must equip their social media response teams for the influx of messages they can expect this holiday – 40% more in social messages, to be exact.
So finds a new report released today, which saw Sprout Social analyse more than 144 million messages across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to uncover how retailers fared in previous holiday shopping seasons and what brands can expect for 2019.
The study found that in 2018, retailers saw a 26% jump in the average social messages received per day between Jan. through Oct. and the holiday months of November to December. It is projected retailers will see a 40% jump for the 2019 holiday months. Small businesses saw a 62% increase in average social messages during the 2018 holiday season.
This season, retailers should anticipate an average of 45% more Facebook messages per day, a 12% increase in Instagram messages and 11% increase in Twitter messages in November and December 2019 compared to the rest of 2019, says the study.
For the first time in the past few years, there was a decrease in Twitter mentions of Black Friday on the day itself in 2018. However, in conjunction with Black Friday deals starting earlier, there was also an increase to 893,605 average daily Twitter mentions of Black Friday during the week of the holiday.
Countries outside of the U.S. are also getting into the Black Friday spirit. In 2018, Twitter mentions of Black Friday grew 80% YoY in France while Brazil experienced a 72% YoY increase in Black Friday mentions.
