by Blake Jackson |@Blakestweet

It seems that Black Friday comes earlier and earlier every year. Soon we will be eating Thanksgiving breakfast so that we can get in line for the great deals of the year. Social media has played a large part in retailers being able to get their discount information out to a mass amount of people. When the market gets clouded with so many deals, companies need to compete for attention to get people to stand in their crazy long lines. We think the following were the top 2013 Black Friday & Cyber Monday Social Media Campaigns.

Marshalls, TJMaxx, and Homegoods started off Black Friday with a video and Twitter campaign encouraging followers to interact with them in order for them to be eligible for a $500 gift card. The campaign entitled #The Gifter included short 15 second videos asking questions such as “What’s your Black Friday strategy?” This campaign is still running for another three weeks and a video is posted once a week. The beauty of this contest is there is a winner each week so if you’ve missed the first three weeks you still have three more chances to win.

Michaels Stores used their Facebook page to promote their Black Friday discounts. They offered an exclusive coupon only available via their Facebook page. Their coupon was for 30% off your entire purchase but, it was only valid from 4 p.m. on Thanksgiving until 2 a.m. on Black Friday. Michaels received a great response with 3,874 likes, 909 shares, 274 comments and more importantly 23,399 claimed the coupon.

Hollister went a different route with their social media campaign. Instead of advertising any specific Black Friday discounts they just wanted people to visit their stores. They called it the Hollister Beach Party where starting at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving their stores opened and guests could discover their deals and hang out with their "lifeguards."

Cyber Monday also had its share of exclusive deals. HUDSON Jeans hosted a 24-hour VIP sales event on Cyber Monday available only to their Facebook fans. The VIP sales event allowed for customers to get up to 40% off merchandise. Also, Picaboo.com for 12 hours posted a code on their Facebook page allowing the first 250 people to redeem. Those fans received 50 free greeting cards.

Social media really got a lot of buzz going and it allowed a lot of companies to get more shoppers. A majority of companies got creative with their social media campaigns for the biggest shopping days of the year. With all the great campaigns that happened this year I can't wait to see what next year brings.