Retailers can expect 75 percent more social media messages this holiday season

‘Tis the season to be bombarded with social media messages. As social media becomes consumers’ favorite way to communicate with their favorite brands and platforms do their best to become shopping channels in their own right, retailers can expect a boom in the number of customers contacting them via social networks this holiday season. That’s according to a study by social media management company Sprout Social, which analyzed more than 2.9 billion messages across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in the last two months of 2017 to forecast what retailers can expect this year.

Retailers received an average of 3,385 messages per day in November and December 2017, compared to an average of 1,768 daily messages in January through October. That’s a 92 percent increase. Most customers chose Facebook to communicate with retailers -- in fact, the number of Facebook messages increased 83 percent in 2017 compared to the year before. In the last two months of the year, the amount of daily Facebook messages nearly doubled.

But that doesn’t mean retail companies shouldn’t pay attention to other platforms, as Sprout Social has seen a 120 percent increase in Instagram messages sent to retailers in the holiday season of 2017.

What can retailers expect for 2018? Sprout Social projects them to receive 75 percent more messages per day in November and December than they did the rest of the year. Compared to last year’s holiday season, retailers can expect a 32 percent increase in daily social media messages.

Pictures: Pixabay, Sprout Social