It’s amazing how time flies. 2014 is nearing its end, and the time has come for business owners to plan for the busiest time of the year. Marketers need to start thinking about the holiday marketing campaigns now, and decide on the best way to use their budgets. Though the tactic has been around for years now, it’s still important for marketers to include social media in their holiday marketing plans. Here are nine statistics from the past few months that show value of social media marketing and to get marketers prepped for holiday marketing.
As was discussed in a previous article about app statistics, most consumers spend the lion’s share of their mobile time with their favorite apps. These are usually social media apps. According to September data from comScore, there are 115.4 million Americans adults who use the Facebook mobile app, 34.7 million who use Twitter, and 24.6 million for Pinterest.
The importance of social media apps for mobile marketing was also seen in a different comScore study which found that social media accounts for 25 percent of the total time spent on mobile apps in the US.
Businesses with large inventories should consider using photo-sharing social networks, which many of their competitors are using. An L2 Think Tank report released in September estimated that nearly 80 percent of U.S. department stores use Pinterest and a whopping 90 percent are on Instagram.
Of course, the traditional social media networks are seeing even higher adoption rates. The L2 study found that 95 percent of the surveyed U.S. department stores were on Facebook and 100 percent of those surveyed were on Twitter.
Business owners and marketers need to make sure to include their products and specials on social media. During the previous shopping season (back-to-school), more than one in four parents planned to post details from their shopping on Facebook or Twitter, according to Nielsen. The same should be expected for the Christmas shopping season.
Nielsen also conducted a study that found 18 percent of US consumer packaged goods shoppers consult social media sites for product and sales information at least once per week. Marketers can expect that rate to grow over during the holiday season.
There’s also data that shows the value of brands continuously posting content on social media for mobile marketers. According to Forrester Research, 49 percent of tablet and 46 percent of smartphone social media users like something posted by a company at least once per week
Here’s another tidbit from the Forrester Research study, adult US consumers who engage with brands on social media sites via mobile device spend an average of 25 minutes per day on Facebook, 12 minutes on YouTube, and 10 minutes on Instagram.
Finally, let’s dispel the myth that teens are leaving Facebook in massive numbers. According to a different Forrester Research study, 57 percent of US teens who use social media sites report they use Facebook more than any other site. Similarly, 78 percent of online teens in the US use Facebook at least once per month, while 52 percent do the same for Instagram, and 20 percent for WhatsApp.
The holiday season is fast approaching and business owners and marketers need to get their social media campaigns ready for this important time for retailers. Though social media has been around for a while, the stats above show that the tactics is still useful and indispensable for marketers who want to reach target demographics and mobile device users.
For information on another way that businesses can use social media to help increase their revenue, read this article about with the data from the 2013 holiday shopping season.