A Connected Christmas
Posted: Wednesday 14 December, 2011
Colin Miller
In the run up to the festive season there has been no shortage of Christmas themed apps, games and online services for you to design Christmas cards online and send them to all of your Facebook contacts. There is no doubt that Christmas is big business and many businesses are looking to cash in on the festivities, no doubt the amount of money spent this year on Christmas presents and celebrations will be staggering, but one thing that will be equally as overwhelming will be the scale on which Christmas experiences, images and videos will be shared online.
With over 250 million images uploaded to Facebook per day, more than 48 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute and around 250 million Tweets per day, the level of sharing through social channels is astounding. As the general trend is for these figures to increase year-on-year then it makes sense that this Christmas will be the most shared, talked about, tweeted and filmed Christmas in history.
A perfect example of a brand utilising social media during the festive season comes in the form of Heineken’s latest ‘Social Christmas Tree’ campaign. The installation at Clarke Quay in Singapore will be in the form of an 11-meter high tree shaped structure, comprising 48 LED screens. Fans can interact with the tree by way of Heineken’s dedicated Facebook app, allowing people to share their good wishes and festive images directly through the social network on to the screens that make up the structure.
So will you be Tweeting about each present you open or constantly updating your Facebook status to let everyone know which Christmas song you’re listening to, or will you be taking a break from social media altogether? The festive period has always been a time for sharing so if you think about it social media and Christmas is a match made in heaven.
