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Much to the chagrin of my wife, the Holiday Season is fast approaching. And part and parcel with the colder weather and decorations are the consumer traditions of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. An additional tradition is the release of IBM’s Enterprise Marketing Management Holiday Benchmark report (specifically from the former Coremetrics arm of the group). [more…]This report is invaluable to retailers, marketers and economists as it provides real-time reporting on how consumers are behaving in this pivotal retail window.

I personally find the data interesting as it relates to the influence of social media marketing on consumer spend as well as the rise in mobile marketing with consumers arming themselves with their smartphones for assisting in their shopping.

According to last year’s report, Facebook led the group of social networks for referrals to online sales on Black Friday at 75% and then again on Cyber Monday at 86%. Following Facebook in referrals was Twitter. An up-and-comer that I’m anxious to see how they perform is Pinterest.

Currently, Pinterest only has about a little than less than 1% of the active users that Facebook has and not quite 3% of the active users that Twitter has. Pinterest is gaining in popularity though, and according the newly released “State of the Internet” report from comScore this week, average daily visits to Facebook have leveled off and users are spending more time on other social media properties. Additionally, comScore’s report cites Pinterest as having the second highest BPI behind LinkedIn users, where Facebook arrives at a modest fourth.

Facebook remains king for now in social referrals to sales, but I’ll be on the lookout to see whether they give any more ground in this 2012 shopping season. And be on the lookout as well to the IBM EMM website and the reports that will be updated throughout the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.