This holiday season in addition to the Black Friday hustle and Cyber Monday, we are seeing another form of holiday shopping driven by social media.

Social media marketing is perfecting alongside the platforms themselves. In full swing of the holidays, Facebook Ads are hot with calls to action (“Find out more” or “Click Here”) and receiving a lot of attention– featuring holiday special offers, discounts, and seasonal competitions/giveaways.

Holiday social media campaigns are increasing user awareness and impacting purchasing decisions. Tis’ the season to jump on good deals, and these days good deals are not in glossy holiday catalogs but brand pages and Facebook Ads.

Good deals, new gift ideas, tips for entertaining, and/or sweepstakes can earn you a follow or a like.

But the majority of holiday sales are being driven by peer recommendations via social media: 93% of Facebook users have made or received shopping recommendations. According to the infographic below (courtesy of Mr Youth):

People are tweeting to brands about shopping

• 38% of users have posted to a brand page on Facebook
• 21% of users have posted to a brand page on Twitter

People +Hangout to make informed purchases

• 18% of users shared recommendations via Google+
• 22% of users share recommendations via Twitter

Check-out the infographic below to see how users and brands are interacting this holiday season (you may be surprised to see that brands are only responding to half, 55%, of users posts– Bah, humbug!):