Social Media Analytics

Digital commerce stole the show during the 2016 holiday shopping season, and mobile and social had the biggest impact on shoppers.   That’s according to data from Salesforce Commerce Cloud, which reports digital commerce was up 34%  globally over last holiday — well surpassing last year’s 24% growth rate.  

Ikea stores are so inviting that some teens want to spend the night.   Ten of the Swedish home furnishing giant’s stores across the world have been the location of illegal sleepovers, BBC News reported.   

One of many things that reaches a frenetic pace during the holiday season is social media activity, with brands ramping up promotions, suggestions and other communication to their followers. Aside from the fact that 23% of the world’s population — yes, 1.7 billion people — visit their Facebook profiles every month, the brands with the best social media presence are reaching upward of 40 million consumers.   

With the Black Friday weekend nearly here, there are clear winners when it comes to social media engagement.   At the head of the class is Sephora, with 2.4 million consumer interactions (reactions, comments, shares, retweets, favorites) across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Sephora’s top status is being driven by its success on Instagram, a site that reveals high consumer enthusiasm for the retailer’s offerings of makeup box sets and key brands, such as Bite Beauty and Urban Decay, as well as its own collection.

Helzberg Diamonds is committed to “making people feel loved.”   By adopting a set of multichannel customer experience management solutions, the jeweler is taking the next step to “wowwing” its shoppers with more personalized customer service cross-channel.   

How do industry observers rate retail social customer care? #EpicFail.   The term social customer care refers to the quick and personalized customer service brands are expected to provide through social media once a customer engages with them to resolve an issue. To date, 92.5% of brands are failing to meet customers' social customer care expectations, according to the “Social Customer Care Report,” from Rational Interaction.  

Thirsty for meaningful brand interactions, consumers are turning to social media more regularly.
 
While it’s still largely used for socializing and product discovery, social media is increasingly influencing consumer purchasing decisions, according to “Shopping’s Social Influence,” a new report from digital advertising and analytics firm Adlucent.
 

Despite their reputation as a generation dedicated to the greater good, millennial consumers are in some ways more narrowly focused than their Gen X elders.   According to a new study of more than 7,000 global consumers conducted online in April age 18-55 conducted by sales and marketing firm Daymon Worldwide, 35% of both millennial and Gen X consumers prefer buying sustainable products.  

User data from Pinterest shows that more than one-in-three of its 100 million global users are millennials. In addition, 79% of millennial Pinterest users say the platform is a “guide to life and is a place to teach me how to do things,” compared with 71% of all Pinterest monthly users.

Other notable millennial-related findings include:

Facebook has been getting a lot of attention for recent updates which make it more of a direct customer engagement tool. The attention is deserved, as Facebook is on its way to becoming a vitally important CRM platform. Here are five reasons why.   1. Everyone is doing it