How Social Media Is Boosting Holiday Sales

Becky Swiggum is the director of marketing at the Outlets at Tejon.

LOS ANGELES—The Outlets at Tejon Ranch, a retail outlet Power center north of Los Angeles, is employing an innovative Twitter campaign to boost holiday sales for brick-and-mortar retailers. The center has created a Twitter-operated Christmas Tree, known as the Twitter Tree, that lights up with colors corresponding to specific hashtags. For example, if a shopper tags the center in a post with #cheer, blue lights are activated, while #joy activates green lights and #shoptejon makes the gifts at the base of the tree shine. According to Becky Swiggum, the director of marketing at the Outlets at Tejon, the Twitter Tree has helped to drive consumer traffic and boost holiday sales. To find out more about the concept, how it has boosted sales and if the idea could work to drive sales at other times of the year, we sat down with Swiggum for an interview.

GlobeSt.com: Tell me about the Twitter Tree and the inspiration for the idea. Swiggum: As the name suggests, The Outlets at Tejon Twitter Tree is a holiday tree adorned with hundreds of lights that blink and change colors when anyone, anywhere tweets one of our holiday hashtags. The Twitter Tree was part of an overarching, festive, sales-driven integrated marketing campaign designed to engage consumers and local media, support local charities, reward shoppers with a premier retail experience, and encourage repeated patronage throughout the holiday season.