What company is getting the lion’s share of holiday marketing attention this year? It’s Facebook, according to recent surveys.
A mere two years ago, 51 percent of retailers surveyed in the U.S. said they allocated budget to Twitter, but a whopping 99 percent to Facebook.
“In 2014, the dollars spent on Twitter have taken a nosedive,” reports eMarketer. “During this holiday season, only 27 percent of respondents said they were focusing holiday social media efforts on Twitter, while 76 percent had invested money in Facebook marketing. That said, the drop in Facebook spending, too, indicates that social media for the holidays has dropped off as a whole.”
Interestingly, Twitter spend is spread over a longer period of time.
“Retailers that do put their money toward Twitter are spreading the wealth over the entire holiday season instead of concentrating funding exclusively on Thanksgiving weekend, according to an Internet Retailer interview with J.J. Hirschle, Twitter’s director of retail,” said eMarketer. “This whole-season approach is consistent with the year’s trends so far, namely that retailers spread out their holiday promotions—beginning before Turkey Day and continuing until Christmas. For companies like Wal-Mart, this has resulted in larger-than-ever sales, though Black Friday sales, when observed in isolation, were slightly lower than in previous years.”