Are you ready for Black Friday?

Takeaways

Here are some of our findings. One clear takeaway is that Black Friday is still getting bigger every year. Cyber Monday also has gained popularity throughout the years. It will be interesting to see, if the trend will continue in the years coming.  

 👨‍🎓 By Post Type

1. Photos, Videos and Links dominate the types of posts every year, with Albums, Live Videos and Status Updates trailing behind 
2. In the last three years, Photos were the most dominant type of post by far.  
3. In 2021, much less videos were posted than in the previous two years. On the other hand, there was a slight increase in the usage of live videos.  

 ⏲️ Num. of Postings & Frequency

1. Almost all brands started posting about Black Friday one month before, in the last week of October. 
2. The number of posts, uploaded on Black Friday itself, was the highest in 2021. 
3. Cyber Monday has gained popularity over the last years. The number of posts in 2021 increased by 42% in comparison to 2019. 
4. The amount of posts on Black Friday itself, decreased by 21% in 2020 in comparison to 2019 and increased again in 2021 by 33%.

 👍 Interaction

1. There’s an interesting change of interaction rates per post type throughout the years: 
   
   1. In 2019 live videos got the highest interaction rate with 0.03, followed by status updates with 0.01.  
   2. In 2020, roles have switched, and status updates got the highest interaction rate with 0.03, followed by live videos with a rate of 0.01.  
   3. In 2021, users reacted strongly to albums. This post type got an interaction rate of 0.05, followed by Live Videos with 0.04. 
   4. In all three analyzed years, Links got the lowest interaction rate. 
2. The interaction rate for status updates dropped by 89% from 2020 to 2021! 
3. Just as in our previous review, we found out that even though Live Videos are not used as much, they had a higher interaction rate than Videos and Photos in all of three analyzed years. It will be interesting to see whether this trend will follow suit in 2022 and whether this feature will be utilized more. 
4. Regarding weekdays, interaction was unsurprisingly the highest on Fridays in 2019, 2020 as well as in 2021. In 2021 they even rose by 110% in comparison to 2020. 
5. The sum of all Interactions was the second highest on Mondays in 2020 and 2021. They even increased by 224% (!) from 2020 to 2021. An explanation for the lower interactions in 2020 could be the removal of Covid restrictions during this time. Online shopping wasn’t the only option anymore and people probably wanted to spend money on experiences, rather than goods. But it is also another indicator that Cyber Monday has gained popularity over the years.  
6. The hashtags #blackfriday and #cybermonday were one of the most used Hashtags from the end of October until Cyber Monday. Interactions on those posts were rather low compared to other hashtags used, though.  

 🗓️ Distribution by Post Type and Date

1. When it comes to distribution by time, around 75% of the posts are published between BlackFriday and the CyberMonday, a trend that we think will continue in 2022. 
2. There's a healthy mix of Videos, Photos and Links shared every year. 
3. Most of the companies start to roll out their campaigns for the two events at the end of October.