Black Friday by the Numbers!

Fact: Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year. Millions of dollars are spent on ads to get people in the stores and make them aware of the doorbuster deals.

Using foursquare data publicly shared on Twitter we can get an idea of how well some major retailers did this Black Friday. Users that share their Foursquare check-ins on Twitter are a consistent group and as a result statistical patterns can be established. These same users are also giving away branded impressions at no charge.

The 6 Black Friday pushes that were evaluated using Foursquare check-in data were:

Target, Walmart, and Best Buy: These are the obvious 3, every year they expressly go after tech savvy shoppers with their discounted TV’s, video games, and cell phones.

Gap and Kmart: Very different stores with the same strategy: be open when everyone else is closed.

Macy’s and Kohl’s: Both spent a lot of money this year attempting to drum up excitement about their offerings via TV ads.

Sports Authority: Sports Authority actually ran a Foursquare promotion, making for an interesting case study. Every hour they were giving away $500 gift cards to their store via Foursquare. They didn’t broadcast it much other than leveraging their database and they didn’t provide many outrageous deals.

The Question: Which retailer had the biggest spike over their average on Black Friday? 

The baseline: Which brand got the most check-ins?

This data consists of public check-ins within the 5 days of black Friday. Walmart clearly dominates check-ins, with Target a close second. On the surface level it would appear that Target and Walmart are the big winners.

However environmental effects need to be considered:

- Consumer preference

- Technology proficiency of a consumer group for a given brand

- Average Age of the consumer group and corresponding technographic profile

- Income: can the group afford smart phones/smart phone plans?

- Number of distribution centers

In short we need some more significant data to work with….

The next level: Trending- Were there actually any spikes?

This graph is a little more telling. Clearly, there were spikes by all 6 brands on Black Friday. It is also clear that Walmart averages the most check-ins for this sample group. Finally and most importantly for the purposes this analysis, the samples are fairly consistent.  In almost all cases the standard deviation was less than 20% of the mean. Only Macy’s had a Standard Deviation large enough, above 80% of the mean for the 30 days leading up to Black Friday, to create measurement questions/require deeper analysis of outlying data.

This trending graph doesn’t fully explain which brands had the largest percent of success. How much did Walmart or Target actually improve above their daily average on this Black Friday? This graph doesn’t give us that information.

Actual analysis: The mean is an important number statistically, it’s like the foundation of a building. The mean often gives more information about a sample than we care to realize and needs to be expressly included in analysis. Walmart averaged 1305 check-ins shared on Twitter every day for the 30 days leading up to Black Friday, Target averaged 1035, Best Buy averaged 358, Macy’s (adjusted) 238, Gap averaged 86, K-Mart had 76, Sports Authority got 27, and Kohl’s had a very small 14 .

It is important to note that these samples don’t include Black Friday data, which would skew and destroy the sample. As will become apparent later, Black Friday as a set are super-outliers for all brands.

Which brand actually did the best?  

It is interesting that Kohl’s was one of the biggest winners. On Black Friday they  averaged 31 times their normal standard deviation. I would question the base sample size if no other brands were close to multiplying their standard deviations to that extent. However, Best Buy, who had one of the largest, and most consistent, regular samples sizes had a LARGER multiplication of standard deviation. Again these numbers were very normative when compared to the mean against each other. Kohl’s and Best Buy were within .01% of percentage standard deviation against the mean. Both Kohl’s and Best Buy were within 2% of Target’s and Walmart’s standard deviations compared against the mean. Only Macy’s required further analysis, after which the data falls right in line with Walmart and Target. Macy’s averaged around 15 times a normal standard deviation, when points greater than 2 standard deviations (outliers) were excluded from the sampling.

What does this all really mean? 

#1 Apparently this ad worked…

#2 Best Buy is the place to go if you are a tech savvy shopper

#3 Target, Walmart, and Macy’s averaged about 6 times their average check-in traffic on Black Friday. Most likely they had similar foot traffic spikes.

#4 Keeping a store open on Thanksgiving doesn’t generate a tremendous lift. Kmart and Gap both had strong returns, however, both stores were still on the bottom of total Black Friday checkins, and had some of the weakest returns.

#5 A Foursquare promotion doesn’t skew data just because it exists. Sports Authority needed better media support.

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Mike Handy has been working in Social Media since Facebook was only for college students. He started his first blog in 1999 when most people were still figuring out this “Internet thing”.  These experiences paired with his background in advertising and data-centric approach provide him with a unique view of social media. When he isn’t working he is probably watching, playing, or doing something hockey related.

A Social Discourse: Check-in Apps

The world of social media is still dominated by powerhouse platforms and many competitors are attempting to replicate those sites’ successes. Despite the apparent monopoly, hundreds have popped up over the years and many of them carry enough weight to be considered valid for the social media marketer. However, judging this multitude of sites is difficult, if for no other reason than determining variables that can easily apply to the full gamut of social platforms. Regardless, I have tackled the challenge and come up with general criteria that should define any social site from the marketer’s point of view.

I never made it through Webelo. I had the uniform, the walking stick, even a handful of beads, but I never got enough merit badges to breach that final level. I think that may explain how easily Foursquare ensnared me. I found myself making extra trips out of my way to gather a few more check-ins, hoping to unlock the next badge on my list. Like so many other Americans, my first instinct at any new restaurant or club was to whip out my phone and check-in as soon as the Wi-Fi kicked in. Alas, much like my Boy Scout days, I would find nothing but failure. I do not live in New York City, and my Facebook friends are scattered far and wide across the country, so many of Foursquare’s achievements are forever blocked to me. Through giving up, however, I found insight.

Foursquare is the current leading entity in what are collectively referred to as “check-in” apps. Popularized back when “app store” referred only to Apple products, these apps were designed to show your friends what you have been up to, where to meet up with you, and when the best time to rob your apartment is. However, what I quickly realized is that these are not “social” apps as much as they are “look how cool I am” apps. The functionality of this first wave of programs was essentially limited to three steps.

1. Arrive at a location.
2. Check In at that location.
3. Post to Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter.

The actual “social” aspect of this platform is questionable. Like Yelp! or UrbanSpoon (both of which I far prefer), a user can share tips or warnings with others, but this is a passive experience. There is no method of conversing with — or replying to — other users in real time.

As you may have picked up in my last post, I place a lot of emphasis on the efficiency and function of social media. My gut reaction to Foursquare when I first discovered it in late 2009 was, “Why bother?” I reasoned that I already had a Facebook account; why would I bother signing up for a second social site that wasn’t going to do anything other than post things on my Facebook? I can just write my plans directly on my profile. Though I was eventually won over (mostly due to a need to put everything I possibly could on my new phone), I still don’t see much use for Foursquare outside of a personal setting.

There are other location-based apps, however, that offer a lot more to the social marketer. Yelp! and UrbanSpoon, as I mentioned earlier, are absolutely essential for any small business. Both of these sites are already well-known to most demographics, and both allow a business to easily appeal to local sentimentality. Yelp! comes with a very well-designed mobile app that allows your customers to upload reviews, ratings, and tips directly from your store. Both of these apps were designed with restaurants in mind, and they work best for those purposes, but anything from diners to shoe outlets can benefit from what Yelp! has to offer.

Another app, Ditto, seeks to add the immediate social interaction that Foursquare lacks. Where Foursquare fails, Ditto excels, and vice versa. Ditto is a relatively new platform, and is limited to Apple products. This effectively cuts off a significant portion of the smart phone market, and those of us with Android or Blackberry phones are out of luck. As a result, it is unlikely that Ditto will reach the saturation that Foursquare has already achieved. It may be hard to sell a business on a platform that they haven’t heard of, and Ditto is almost certainly in that category. For those that are willing to give the app a chance, Ditto has something great to offer.

The main feature separating Ditto from all of the other location-based platforms is that it is written in future-tense. Foursquare is about where you are, Yelp! is about where you have been, and Ditto is about where you are going to be. For a marketer, this makes all the difference in the world. Let’s assume that you are a small business with a personal profile on Foursquare and Ditto, and you have fifty friends on each. If a few friends on Ditto say that they are planning on going to a competitor’s shoe store, it may be a great time to broadcast that “BOGO” coupon you’ve been sitting on. On Foursquare, you won’t know about your customer’s betrayal until they’re already trying on those cute pumps. If several Ditto users are posting that they want a great place to go for Chinese food, you can share a link to the local paper’s review of your award-winning Lo Mein. On Foursquare, you wouldn’t even know that these potential customers existed.

When it is all said and done, Ditto may be the new kid on the block, but it has nowhere to go but up. The smart phone market is exploding. Though studies have described location-based apps as low on the social media scale, around half of the people that don’t use them cite lacking a smart phone as the reason. These check-in apps are going to be around for a while, and I predict that Ditto may end up being one of the best.

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Tim Howell holds two mayorships and eight badges, and is a content manager for Make Me Social. He studied fine art, psychology, and international pop culture at Bowling Green State University. In his spare time, he is a blogger, bartender, and social activist with a passion for cooking.