Research reveals 30% rise in social media messaging to brands during holiday season

New research from Sprout Social reveals that the average retailer can expect to receive more than 3,140 messages via social media during the 2016 holiday season. That's 30% more than last year.

Furthermore, more than half (56%) of those messages will require some sort of action, a 15% increase on last year's holiday season.

However, according to Sprout Social, there remains a significant difference in retailer response rate between social networks. On Twitter more than 20% of messages receive a response while on Facebook that number drops to 13%.Retail is one of the most responsive industries, responding to 1 in 6 inbound messages while most businesses only reply to 1 in 10.

"Meeting your customer's needs on social during the holiday season doesn't come without making a list and checking it twice," says Sprout Social. "Brands that are serious about seeing success during this time period are preparing their social media and customer service teams accordingly."

Tags: 2016 holiday trends, customer service, research, social media