Social media played a big role in Black Friday deals this year. Many big companies ran contests for gift cards or exclusive shopping sprees to help promote the biggest shopping day of the year on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Did online buzz increase this year? We used Social Radar to find out.

Black Friday buzz

Black Friday was mentioned in nearly 2% of all Internet conversations on Friday.

Black Friday mentions more than doubled in 2011.

Black Friday conversation topic cloud

Conversations around Black Friday were 85% positive.

Content category distribution

Approximately 70% of Black Friday mentions came via Twitter; 24% came via blogs.

Is the increase in Black Friday buzz a good sign for the economy?

 

According to the Wall Street Journal, companies cranked up hiring in April to the fastest pace in five years, easing fears that a recent lull in economic growth would mean fewer new jobs.

Although the unemployment rate is still sitting at around 9%, the government snapshot of the labor market showed the U.S. created 244,000 jobs in April. The private sector added 268,000 positions—the largest jump since 2006—offset by continued cuts at all levels of government. Most economists saw the month’s strong job gains as confirmation that a recent slowdown in the economic expansion was likely temporary and that growth will pick up.

It’s the first time since November 2008 that job openings have been at or above three million for two consecutive months.

We used Social Radar to measure the number of times the words ‘unemployed’, ‘unemployment’ or ‘jobless’ were mentioned over the last two years.

‘Unemployment’, ‘unemployed’ or ‘jobless’ mentions

Unemployment mentions are down 48% overall over the last two years, and down significantly since the highest spike in March/April 2010.

Wal-Mart pulled down the Dow Jones industrial average Monday after analysts at JPMorgan lowered their outlook for the company. JPMorgan’s analysts say the world’s largest retailer risks losing customers as low-income customers head to discount stores and other shoppers return to more expensive stores.

We used Social Radar to run analysis on online conversations around Wal-Mart over the past few years.

Wal-Mart chatter

Since November 2008, online chatter around Wal-Mart has been steadily declining. Is the improving economy hurting Wal-Mart?

The U.S. economy is in shambles. Global warming is melting the polar ice caps. General Motors re-entered Wall Street with a new IPO. The FDA warned of dangers in caffeinated alcohol drinks. FarmVille creator Zynga announced a new CityVille game. Google launched its first fashion endeavor Boutiques.com.

But all of these stories were overshadowed this week by Prince William’s announcement that he will marry longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton.

What does this say about our country?

Next Friday is Black Friday, the Friday following Thanksgiving Day that traditionally signifies the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Retailers offer massive discounts during extended hours to lure shoppers and boost sales. Several websites and blogs dedicated to the deals list retailer info to prepare shoppers.

We used Social Radar to analyze Black Friday conversations and determine which retailers were generating the most chatter. The chart below ranks the top 25 retailers generating chatter, ranked by percentage of mentions within Black Friday conversations.

Top 25 retailers generating Black Friday chatter:

Which retailers will win the crucial Black Friday battle?

As the economic and employment recovery continues to be slow, the Federal Reserve announced that the central bank will buy $600 billion in long-term Treasuries over the next eight months — a policy known as quantitative easing.

This second round of monetary stimulus, dubbed QE2, is the government’s attempt to encourage spending by making it cheaper to borrow money. Critics believe too much stimulus could lead to excessive inflation that could endanger economic stability over the long term.

We used Social Radar to run analysis on Fed chair Ben Bernanke and QE2 over the past two days. Conversations around both Bernanke and QE2 are both overwhelmingly negative.

Topics of conversation in red below represent negative chatter.

The word ‘risk’ is appearing in an astounding 30% of posts on these topics.

Will this round of stimulus help after the previous $2 trillion in similar purchases have not jolted spending?

As astonished as we’ve been to watch Twitter’s rise in 2009 to almost 2% of the conversation share on the web, swine flu has jumped past almost every other hot topic in the last week. This certainly gives viral marketing a new meaning.