Where did November go? We've carved the turkey, emptied our wallets, and have shaved our mustaches (well I haven't, but all those Mo Brothers likely have).
Now it's time to start buying holiday presents, decorating, and getting into the holiday spirit!
The last week has been stuffed with food and family, and if you're very brave, some shopping on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. Levi Jeans donated nearly 19,000 jeans to Goodwill in a social activism campaign, and the Movember and No-Shave November campaigns ended.
Black Friday Infiltrates Thanksgiving Thursday
Thanksgiving Day marks the official start of the holiday shopping season, and not just in the US anymore.
This year, shops opened earlier than ever for Black Friday (actually opening on Thursday). Once the turkey was stuffed and the table cleared shoppers left their homes in search of great deals and bargains. Although the National Retail Federation has reported that shoppers actually spent less money online and in stores (11.3% less to be exact), many deal-hunterstook to Twitter to discuss Black Friday shopping.
We began tracking the social conversation with Brandwatch the week before Thanksgiving and saw more than 8.7 million mentions of Black Friday, with the most mentions occurring on Black Friday (3.7 million mentions).
Many people and brands took to social media to express their feelings on the day, bargains, purchases, and plans. The most mentioned topic was "price" with 1.1 million mentions. "Black Friday shopping" followed with more than 680,000 mentions.
The most popular hashtag for the day was #BlackFriday, which received more than 1.7 million tweets and retweets.
Conversations around Black Friday were consistent throughout the week, with the highest spike in mentions on November 28.
This data is based on a 10% sampling found using the Brandwatch Analytics platform. The data numbers have been multiplied to represent the full volume.
Sunny California had the most people mention Black Friday, followed by New York, and Texas.
Unsurprisingly, the United States has had the most mentions of Black Friday (79%). The retail frenzy has crossed the pond though, as shops in the UK (7%) boasted Black Friday deals as well.
Women held the highest share of voice (56%) in discussing Black Friday.
Small Biz is Big Online
Between the "first in line" madness that is Black Friday, and the online frenzy of Cyber Monday as workers scrounge for deals during lunch breaks, a little something called Small Business Saturday took place. Shoppers took to their neighborhood retail stores, boutiques, and eateries on Saturday to support small businesses.
We saw more than 174,000 mentions of Small Business Saturday over the past week. To no one's surprise, the most mentions occurred on Small Business Saturday, November 29, with nearly 70,000 mentions.
The two officials hashtags, #ShopSmall and #SmallBizSat were the most popular in the conversation:
- #ShopSmall: over 62,000 tweets and retweets garnering more than 320 million impressions
- #SmallBizSat: over 29,000 tweets and retweets garnering more than 334 million impressions
Interestingly, handmade and vintage e-commerce site Etsy got in on the Small Biz action as the website was one of the most mentioned Tweeters, top hashtags, and topics in the online conversation.
Using our new minute-by-minute charting feature in Brandwatch, we saw that 12:15 p.m. ET was the most popular minute for Tweets, with nearly 500 mentions of Small Business Saturday. What else accounted for the sudden spike? Tweets including Mashable's 25% discount code for its Media Summit.
This graph is shows GMT timezone.
Levi's "Field of Jeans"
In preparation for the season of giving (not just buying), Levi Strauss & Co and the San Francisco 49ers asked Bay Area fans to join them in a "Field of Jeans" clothing drive on November 2 at Levi's Stadium. The result - almost 19,000 pairs of jeans collected and will be donated to Goodwill. The sales of the donated jeans will benefit the nonprofit's local job training programs. Before the 12 tons of jeans were donated, they were placed on Levi's Stadium field to demonstrate the impact of recycling used clothing instead of throwing old items out.
We saw just 2,700 mentions of the initiative since the beginning of November. The first spike in mentions occurred on November 2, donation day, and again on November 24 after Levi's showcased the results. While a major success IRL, the campaign was not a viral sensation and could have benefited even more from additional social engagement.
Levi's recycling-focused and charitable campaign is a good example of the interesting combination of a PR stunt with an overall social awareness campaign.
Shave it off!
As November came to a close, so too did the Movember and No-Shave November campaigns.
For the entirety of November we tracked both campaigns closely, because really we wanted to know what is the difference (and who's getting mentioned the most!) Here's a look at the final (social data) campaign results:
Movember vs. No-Shave November
Both had a presence on social media, but Movember mentions had a larger share of voice on Twitter for the month:
- Movember: over 655,500 mentions
- No-Shave November: over 368,000 mentions
This data is based on a 10% sampling of Twitter mentions found using the Brandwatch Analytics platform. The data numbers have been multiplied to represent the full volume.
Both campaigns included mentions of each other in the top hashtags.
Movember Top Hashtags
Throughout the campaign, Gillette UK made it into the top hashtags (#bestamancanget) with their giveaway of Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart's signed gloves. But the competition was not one of the most mentioned hashtags at the end of the campaign.
Different variations of #moustache, #mustache, and #beard also made it to the tops hashtags for Movember.
No-Shave November Top Hashtags
The second most used hashtag in relation to No-Shave November is #Movember. Terms like #beard, #beards, #beardgang, #noshave, #mustache, and #letitgrow were also popular hashtags when discussing the month.
Prior to November 30, Movember had more topics within the conversations of the campaign. But at the end of the month, No-Shave November had more topics discussed in its overall conversation, even though the volume of mentions was smaller compared to Movember.
Movember continued to focus on mentions of men's health (45,000+ mentions), face of men's health (32,000 + mentions), and changing the face of men (21,000+ mentions). As well as including call to actions like support, donate, and win.
No-Shave November included more topics, but with less volume of mentions like beard, grow, face, hair, and similar terms.
Final Four (weeks of the year)
Throughout December we'll be keeping a close eye on viral campaigns and socially trending news stories (check out our People Mag's "Sexiest Man Alive" social data in Digiday) and of course, the upcoming holiday and shopping seasons. And possibly (probably) new seasons and holiday specials of Sherlock, Doctor Who, and Downton Abbey (what can I say, I'm addicted to British television).
If you have any questions or are interested in learning more about Brandwatch or social data, leave a comment!
Now you mo.