According to a new Nielsen report, 20% of “social consumers” now discover content through their social contacts, instead of through search engines or content portals. Commerce is a type of content. This means that for “social consumers” (defined as those who spend 10 percent or more of their online time on social media), Social could become the new Search. What can online retailers do to tap into this new trend? Deploy tools that let your shoppers discover your products by looking at what friends and neighbors bought.

From The Internet Retailer survey of IRNewsLink e-newsletter readers conducted in August 2009 with e-mail marketing and survey firm Vovici Corp:

“Social marketing was a top priority for 49.5% of survey respondents this year, compared with 35.7% for video, 34.1% for blogs or customer ratings and reviews, and 22.5% for live chat or product personalization.”

Lots of other interesting stats there about Emerchant priorities. Worth a look.

That’s the title of a recent article in the New York Times on research showing that the power of friend-influence is so great it even has a significant effect on your health.  The research was done by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler using data from the long-running Framingham Heart Study and published in July 2007 in the New England Journal of Medicine.  We see implications for social shopping, as well.

Findings from the study cited in the article include:

• When a Framingham resident became obese, his or her friends were 57 percent more likely to become obese, too.
• A Framingham resident was roughly 20 percent more likely to become obese if the friend of a friend became obese — even if the connecting friend didn’t put on a single pound.
• A person’s risk of obesity went up about 10 percent even if a friend of a friend of a friend gained weight.
• A friend taking up smoking increased your chance of lighting up by 36 percent, and if you had a three-degrees-removed friend who started smoking, you were 11 percent more likely to do the same.
• If a person at a small firm stopped smoking, his or her colleagues had a 34 percent better chance of quitting themselves.
• The article also cited, a 2006 Princeton study which found that having babies appears to be contagious: if your sibling has a child, you’re 15 percent more likely to have one yourself in the next two years.

So, if the example of thin friends can make someone thin, and the example of friends quitting smoking can help someone quit, imagine what seeing friends shop at your store does.

TurnTo will be in booth #212 at Shop.Org in Vegas next week.  Come by and see us.  Or shoot us a note at contact@turnto.com and let’s schedule a time to talk while we’re all there.  Oh, and we’re giving away a Kindle!

We’ve just released an announcement welcoming 17 additional partner merchants, travel sites, and non-profits that have recently gone live or will be shortly. These new partners include:

• Intrepid Travel: offering over 650 trips in over 100 countries, specializing in ‘off the beaten track’ adventures, organizing trips for 20 years, with over 70,000 travelers joining them each year.
• Jomashop: No. 209 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, has been in the wholesale and retail trade of upscale luxury brand name goods such as watches, fine writing instruments, handbags and luxury crystal since it was founded in New York in 1987.
• Stylin’ Trucks, a (sister) company of JC Whitney: a 20-year leader in providing performance products for sport, off-road and pick-up trucks, as well as SUVs. Parent auto parts retailer J.C. Whitney & Co. is No. 115 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.
• EyeBuyDirect: A leading online eyewear seller and an Internet Retailer Hot 100, EyeBuyDirect is a global prescription lab and optical retailer specializing in the volume production of affordable prescription eyeglasses.
• Overstock Art: the Internet leader in hand painted oil painting reproductions at clearance prices.
• BeyondtheRack: a private shopping club for men and women who want designer brands at prices up to 70% off retail.
• The Watchery: No. 278 in the Internet Top 500 offers brand name watches at substantial discounts to the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.
• F+W Media: offers community, content, and connectivity to focused markets of highly passionate enthusiast communities.
• Country Pet: a producer of all-natural pet food and treats, running on a NetSuite platform.
• The Mountain Fund: dedicated to achieving the Millennium Development Goals at the grassroots level, The Mountain Fund and its global network of partners span every corner of the globe eliminating poverty in mountain regions.
• CoffeeCakes.com: with an ever-expanding product line includes coffeecakes, whiskey cakes, rum cakes and travel mugs, CoffeeCakes.com distinguishes itself from other Internet retailers because of its obsession with providing superior customer service.
• Accessory Geeks: delivers high quality cell phone & iPod accessories while providing information with geeky expertise.
• Jamestown Distributors: an industry leader in marine and building supplies for over 30 years.
• Bloomex.ca: a national Canadian Floral company.
• Christian Cinema: a motion picture production and distribution company founded in 1999, born out of a desire to connect independent Christian filmmakers with consumers.
• Black Helmet Apparel: founded by a fireman for firefighters, Black Helmet Apparel designs are hand drawn, and unique.
• Wireless Emporium: provides consumers and on-the-go professionals a one-stop shop for cellular phone and wireless device accessories as the leader in wireless accessories.

The enhancements in this release improve both the user experience and the value for sites that use the system. Here’s a summary:

The widget now shows basic social shopping content to all users without requiring any sign-up:

• Items recently recommended by other shoppers
• Popular items
• The number of neighbors who also shop at the store and the items those neighbors have purchased (based on zip code matches)

Users can now import their friends list without ever leaving the widget and immediately see how many of their friends are also customers of the store and what those friends bought. All the information is anonymous, but shoppers can request the store to send a connect invitation on their behalf to those friends. This new approach has a number of benefits:

• Shoppers see more first-degree friend reference information
• Shoppers have a way to connect to friends who have not yet opted in to the site’s “trusted reference system” while still preserving customers’ privacy
• The sign-up flow for shoppers is cleaner and more intuitive

We’ve made a slew of visual and usability improvements.  Please go to one of our partner sites and have a look.

Sites currently using the TurnTo system will get this upgrade without any action required.

Here’s an article in AdWeek summarizing the findings from a recent Nielsen study of consumer trust.  “Recommendations from people known” is by far the most trusted source of input — 20% ahead of the next closest.  Nielsen gathered opinions from 25,000 internet consumers to produce this chart:

Most of the books I “read” these days are audio books.  Last year, that included Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff’s excellent Groundswell.  (Here it is on Audible.)  As a result, I missed this extraordinary chart, and just discovered it today.  So it’s not exactly breaking news.  But even if you’ve seen it before, it’s worth a second look.

PQ Media just released their Word-of-Mouth Marketing Forecast 2009-2013. It’s also available free to WOMMA members.

Highlights from the report:

Spending on U.S. word-of-mouth (WoM) marketing increased 14.2% to $1.54 billion in 2008, as brands recognized the need to get involved in consumer and business conversations and allocate resources to WoM. Spending increased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.6% from 2003 to 2008.

Spending on WoM content and services increased 13.0% to $1.26 billion in 2008, as major marketers integrated WoM into the media mix and shifted to specialized WoM firms that help drive long-term campaigns. Spending rose at a 37.3% CAGR of 37.3% from 2003 to 2008.

Spending on WoM ancillary products increased 19.7% to $286 million in 2008, due to growing demand for return-on-investment (ROI) data and the impact of WoM campaigns on consumer purchasing behavior. Growth can also be attributed to the increasing sophistication of WoM tools that are being used to monitor online and offline conversations. Spending grew at a CAGR of 39.1% from 2003 to 2008.

Total spending on WoM marketing is expected to increase 10.2% to $1.70 billion in 2009 and grow at a CAGR of 14.5% during the 2008-2013 period, reaching $3.04 billion as more brands include WoM in their media mix and ROI metrics improve.

www.engagementdb.com provides case studies on companies’ use of social tools as well as a database used to analyze the effectiveness of different efforts.  The site is produced by Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group and Wet Paint.  Their new report shows a strong positive effect from social channels.  Or if you prefer the highlights, here’s a write-up at OnlineMediaDaily.com.  One finding that stands out:

“As the number of channels increase, overall engagement increases at a faster rate.”

Social is one of those tools where more really is better.