A recent report from NPD Group, a market research firm, found that mom shoppers are using social media friends and followers to help with their buying decisions. The study finds that 79 percent of mothers with children younger than 18 are active in social media - an impressive statistic. Of those active in social media, one in four said they purchased items on the recommendation from a Facebook friend, Twitter fan or other social media connection.
"Social media has become an enormous influence on purchasing," said Anita Frazier, analyst for The NPD Group. "But many marketers have yet to fully realize the potential of social media and the power of peer group recommendations."
To Frazier's point, perhaps the reason many marketers "have yet to fully realize the potential of social media" is that the majority of marketers do not yet believe that social media can drive actual purchases. It has been widely written across the Internet that social media is not a place where people make purchases. That might be true, in the literal sense, but at least this study shows that social media can indeed influence a decision greatly and, for all intents and purposes, help click the "buy" button. People have trusted their friends more than corporations for eons. Why would that change online?