Dive Brief:

• Kohl’s Black Friday sweepstakes earned more than 112,000 mentions on Twitter over the holiday weekend, the most of any brand, according to social marketing firm Spredfast. 
• REI’s anti-shopping hashtag #optoutside garnered 48,554 Twitter mentions to take second place over the Black Friday weekend. 
• The Kohl’s sweeps offered 30 prizes including tickets to the Star Wars: The Force Awakens for retweeting tweets tagged with #Kohlssweepstakes. 

Dive Insight:

Twitter proved effective in getting customers off their mobile screens and into stores for Black Friday weekend. Asking customers to retweet its sweepstakes posts to win, Kohl’s attracted more than 112,000 mentions on the social platform this year. Last year, the department store chain used a holiday trivia contest and sweeps to become the leading brand on Twitter for the entire week.

Interestingly, REI’s #optoutside hashtag — which asked consumers to take a hike or engage in some other outdoor activity on Black Friday instead of shopping — came in second for mentions over the weekend. The hashtag drew a whopping 290,000 mentions during the Thanksgiving week leading up to Black Friday. Amazon came in third in Twitter mentions over the three-day weekend, followed by Target and Victoria’s Secret.

With many stores releasing deals online ahead of the holidays, Black Friday crowds in stores were smaller this year, early reports indicate. Thanksgiving e-commerce spending was up increased 22% from last year, according to Visa, driven by promotions from retailers such as Walmart, which made doorbuster deals available online on Thanksgiving Day. Kohl’s and other legacy retailers using social media to drive foot traffic will likely be among the few to realize profits from incremental impulse buys.