Beats & Bytes - Social Feedback Loop

This past Halloween season was the biggest ever. I’m sure you felt it too.

It’s moved beyond a simple night into weeks of build up and days of parties. According to recent reports Halloween spending was up this year breaking a record high. $8.4 billion U.S. Halloween sales to be exact.

We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again, here at Nue we believe this to be a direct result of social media and the digital economy. Everyone is looking for that epic Halloween moment and they want to share it.

That leads to more parties, more people buying costumes more candy being sold, more shares, likes, snaps, grams, and streams all inspiring others to join in the fun. Talk about a positive feedback loop.

This is the new social world we live in and Halloween’s massive cultural imprint is proof of this. This is the new normal. More events create more content which leads to more spending.

Recently in Bloomberg Deborah Belevan Vice President of investor relations at Party City talked about how social media is changing their business. Buoyed by people who want to Instagram their experience at brick-and-mortar locations she said that “The social media craze is helping drive Halloween participation.”

It’s just another sign of the times. Like Coachella getting more eyeballs than the Super Bowl. The future is here, it’s being shared, and it’s on your phone and there are all sorts of new opportunities.

At the same time we have niches developing for every type of experience, including the phoneless concert experience. But no doubt companies like Snap with their Spectacles and Apple with their EarPods will help bring more people to AR and VR experiences and mainstream adoption won’t be too far behind. With these advances in technology social moments will not only increase but they will evolve.

– @JesseKay