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Black Friday shoppers check out a laptop for sale at a Best Buy store in Fairfax, Va. Big retailers increasingly are trying to reach customers via Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

Elves are so 20th century. This holiday season, retailers are turning to Facebook, Twitter and other social websites to help gift-givers find and deliver the perfect present.  

Big retailers including Macy's, Wal-Mart and Best Buy publicized their Black Friday deals early to their Facebook fans. Target, Amazon and Toys R Us ran contests, giveaways or flash sales to coax consumers into "liking" their brands. Hardware chain Lowe's ran an "American Idol"-style promotion in which fans voted on items to be discounted. Best Buy created an event page for Black Friday and got nearly 28,000 people to RSVP as "attending."

"There's so much going on," says Alison Lipson, senior retail and apparel analyst at market research firm Mintel. "For a lot of retailers, the incentive is that fans will get some exclusive information or content like a preview of the Black Friday ad or an opportunity to win a gift card."

According to shopping site Nextag, 5 percent of all Black Friday shopping took place via Facebook. Social shopping offers companies one big advantage over websites and e-mail marketing: It confers "trust and persuasion of a friend," said Andrew Lipsman, vice president of marketing at research company comScore.

"If you think about the media environment today, there are so many messages," he said. "Any message that gives you an extra reason to pay attention is really important."

"These last few years have been the toughest time for retail in a generation," said David Stone, CEO and cofounder of CashStar, which provides technology behind digital gift certificates. "Facebook is a social channel where people connect and talk, and this is a real bright spot for retailers this year."

Stone said about two dozen of his company's retail clients, including Groupon, let customers send e-gifts to the Facebook wall of a friend. 

Lipsman calls this a canny use of social media's ripple effect.

A gift certificate sent via e-mail is seen only by the recipient, he points out. One sent to a Facebook wall, on the other hand, can be seen by a potentially wide circle of friends.

"You need to think about the viral impact," he said. In a study of Facebook fans of Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buy, comScore found that Facebook fans spent 40 to 50 percent more time in the stores than non-fans, and friends of fans spent an average of 20 percent more time than non-fans.

Facebook gifting also appeals to impulse shoppers and procrastinators.

Facebook gift cards show up on the recipient's wall within minutes, said Bradford Robinson, gift card marketing manager for Chili’s Grill & Bar, who notes that 40 percent of gift card sales occur between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

While Facebookis the most important social site for retailers, a few are playing around with other platforms. J.C. Penney used Foursquare in its Black Friday push, pledging to donate $25 to the Salvation Army each time someone "checked in" to its stores Friday morning. Target and AT&T used Twitter to promote their holiday sales.

"I think the actual information and promotions on Facebook are more geared toward the consumer. I think they're using Twitter as more of a communication medium," said Mintel's Lipsom. 

Walgreens used Twitter to promote its mobile app, which will send coupons to the smartphones of people who download it. Disney Store rolled out an interactive Twitter campaign that included a Twitter "concierge." Users can send a tweet asking holiday shopping-related questions using the hashtag #FairyGodmother.

"This is the first year we've done it," said Paul Gainer, senior vice president at Disney Store North America. He said Disney Store has a "small team" tasked with answering customer tweets within half an hour. So far, they've given advice on queries ranging from what to get a five-year-old in the $30 price range to the best place to park at a particular mall in order to enter near the store's location.

"The great thing about it is the questions could be anything," he said. "It's kind of kept us on our toes." 

The other breakout star of this year's digital holiday shopping experience is the tablet computer. Companies are investing in tablet-specific mobile apps designed to make digital catalog shopping more exciting by making use of a tablet's bigger screen and touchscreen functionality. "Retailers are really rethinking the way iPads need to be considered," said Lipson. "Instead of scrolling through pages, it's more of an interactive view." 

While only a small percentage of consumers today own tablets, companies including clothing retailer Anthropologie and Disney Store have launched iPad apps designed to capture these potential customers. "We've seen really good response in utilizing the iPad as a shopping medium," Gainer said. Between Thanksgiving and Black Friday morning, he added, roughly 5 percent of sales were coming from mobile devices, primarily iPads.