Black Friday and the marathon leading up to it is prime time for brands to come up with a flawless social media campaign, and it is imperative that they get it right. The move from in-store to online has boomed this year, with an increasing amount of brands jumping on the Black Friday band wagon. The surge in involvement in this shopping holiday has resulted in tougher competition between brands for consumer’s attention and purchases.
The Brands doing Black Friday the Right Way
The generic posts about what promotions are available on Black Friday isn’t enough to win over consumers anymore, brands are now thinking and planning ahead of the day to pull in interest. By brands building this momentum to the big day of sales, it results in an increase in engagement with customers and their name being in the forefront of consumers mind when the time comes to buy.
Gym Shark
This sportswear brand started their Black Friday social media campaign with #GymsharkBlackout, a campaign consisting of their products being on sale from Monday of the week leading up to Black Friday. They have promoted this by making it look as though the website has had a glitch and the sales have been released 4 days earlier than anticipated.
This gives the buyers early access to savings that other sports clothing brands may not be releasing until Friday, resulting in consumers choosing Gym Shark over competitors. They started their social media campaign with teasing posts on Twitter featuring sneak peaks that encouraged users to be engaged. These pre Blackout posts informed about the opportunity to pre-plan sale purchases by adding items to baskets before the Blackout to speed up checkout and improve buying experience.
Beauty Bay
Beauty Bay are known for supplying health and beauty products from a variety of brands to the masses, their Black Friday social media campaign however hasn’t been marketed as a ‘Black Friday’ event.
This clever strategy encourages users to keep checking on Beauty Bay’s Twitter for any unexpected promotions. As they haven’t referenced to the shopping holiday it isn’t necessarily guaranteed that promotions will carry on or new ones will come out. This results in consumers jumping at sale releases and spending their money prior to . Beauty Bay have given their posts on Twitter a sense of urgency and panic to get the deals before they go, which adds to the appeal of buying through them before Friday.
This is a tactful move for Beauty Bay as they are providing their consumers the opportunity to buy products from an assortment brands prior to Friday which is when the brand themselves may put a promotion out. This results in the consumer buyer from Beauty Bay rather than the original retailer.
Black Friday Unlocked
With the frantic events of in-store shopping on a day like Black Friday, there’s no doubt as to why online purchasing is doing so well and therefore the need for brands to out-do one another’s campaigns is ever-increasing. With the ability to reach millions, social media campaigns and Black Friday go hand in hand, and by being tactful and breaking the ‘rules’ of Black Friday there is no limits to what brands can come up with in order to bag those customers.
With this shopping holiday just starting to lift off the ground, we predict to see less of the generic ‘30% off on Friday’ posts and more thoughtful strategy based campaigns and promotions.
The key to the perfect Black Friday and social media marriage is to be unpredictable, create a sense of urgency, and keep your consumers on their toes.
If you're looking to execute a cutting-edge social media campaign that gets people talking, get in touch with Champions Digital today and we'll see what we can do for you.
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