Retailers make holidays a social occasion

The holidays are becoming an increasingly social event, as evidenced by the promotional campaigns of two major department store chains this season.

According to Adweek, both Target and Macy’s are heavily leveraging a variety of social media platforms to engage consumers for the 2015 holiday season. Target has increased the percentage of its overall paid media spend represented by social to 12%, up 30% from about 9% in 2014.

Specific platforms Target is using for its holiday campaign include Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram. On Snapchat, Target is providing a Thanksgiving-themed geofilter that lets consumers place Thanksgiving graphics on top of their photos. Starting Dec. 1, Target will offer a new holiday-themed geofilter each day up to Dec. 25.

Other Target social promotions include the use of Facebook “Canvas” multimedia mobile ads to provide full-screen displays of its Wonderpacks arts and crafts product. In addition, Target is employing Instagram “Marquee” ads that allow it to reach large amounts of Instagram users with sets of three promotional clips in short bursts of time. Using Marquee, Target can track who opened an initial clip and then follow up with the second one.

On the more upscale side of the department store vertical, Macy’s is also planning to use Instagram Marquee throughout the day on Wednesday, Nov. 25. Macy’s will also target Facebook users who viewed the Instagram videos. In addition, Macy’s will deliver targeted Facebook ads to consumers who engage with its Black Friday and Cyber Monday content.

Both Target and Macy’s are recognizing the increasing importance of both social media and visual content to the modern customer experience. Today’s shoppers live on social media and prefer to view images and videos rather than read text. Retailers can either respond accordingly or be left struggling to make it to the 2016 holiday season.