Santa uses social media to spend $16 Billion online
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Wed, Dec 09, 2009
According to comScore, for the holiday season-to-date Santa has spent nearly $16 billion online in the US, which is a 3-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week ending December 6 reached $4.6 billion in holiday spending, heavier than any individual spending week in 2008 but still below two individual weeks in 2007.
So is Santa influenced by Social Media
comScore found that 28 percent of those who including Santa have begun their holiday shopping this season indicated that social media has influenced their purchases. Those that indicated social media influenced them stated that reading a consumer-generated product review was the most common form of social media that had influenced their holiday purchases, followed by an expert product review. Seven percent of people indicated they have followed a fan page on Facebook to take advantage of special offers and deals, while 6 percent said they have been influenced by a friend's Facebook status update referring to a particular product. Five percent of respondents indicated they had followed a company on Twitter to take advantage of special offers and deals, while 3 percent said that a friend's "tweet" about a product influenced their purchase behavior.
It appears that Social media is emerging as an important marketing channel this and future holiday seasons. Social media emergence is being driven by increased consumer adoption of social media and the growth in digital word-of-mouth that is occurring. On the other hand, having a social media marketing strategy makes sense for companies in this environment because it's cost-effective and shows an effort to get closer to one's customers. It is possible that we could be viewing the first real glimpse at the impact social media will play on business for the future.
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