04 Dec 2018 Winning Black Friday Social Activations
This Black Friday came in looking green for many retailers. CNBC reported that online sales for Black Friday were 23.6% higher than last year, which is BIG. With that much online activity, social media had to be a big piece of the strategy to drive traffic.
We’ve rounded up three of the best Black Friday Social Activations and content inspirations.
Top Black Friday Social Activations
J.Crew Keeps the Holiday Cheer
With online traffic being so high, admittedly higher than anticipated for J.Crew, the website glitched and caused some users to be unable to complete their purchases. J.Crew’s social team handled the customer complaints expertly by posting an update on social explaining they were working to resolve the issues and that users could check back on Facebook for updates.
The following day, they posted an apology post, thanked their fans for the support (and traffic!) and most importantly, extended the sale. Several of the complaints were directly responded to and although there was room to respond to more, J.Crew showed their presence and that they were acknowledging their customer’s frustration. Things like this happen, but I think they likely kept more customers since they addressed the issues publicly on social and created a make-good.
Barnes & Noble Expert Gifting Series
Everyone is familiar with the reason for the Black Friday season- that reason is the sales. However, Barnes & Noble took a different approach this season. They focused most of their social content on sharing gift guides through short social videos and highlighted an exclusive offer that customers could only get during the Black Friday weekend. Barnes & Noble was offering signed books from authors through in-store pickup only during the weekend.
Since it’s impossible to make any sale feel exclusive on Black Friday or stand out against other competitors who are ALL offering sales, it was a clever way to encourage store traffic and purchases by creating a sense of urgency.
Target Creates Perfect Short Clips
Target isn’t just everyone’s place to “run an errand”, they’re also a leader in content creation. During Black Friday weekend, they had some of the best examples of short, engaging video posts driving to lead generation. Each video was around 2 seconds, giving fans a quick laugh but also encouraging them to click through to a page that shared Black Friday details and encouraged email signs ups for fans to be the “first” to receive the Black Friday ad.
Bonus: Target didn’t post the same content on each channel, they took into consideration the mindset fans were in on each channel.
We love taking a look at how brand’s activate around Black Friday. If you’re ready to start strategizing for next year, contact us!
