I've been thinking a lot about the consumer in this economy, given that consumers drive about 70% of our economy in the U.S. and a large share of the world's economy (most notably China's).  We are the world's largest shopper.  This week's article by Mr. Cooper really hit the nail on the head, leading me to believe that the recovery is going to take a lot longer than initially assumed.  This may be old news to some of you, but I have been consuming the data as it becomes available and seeing consumer saving increase so dramatically is a real turning point.

I believe that social commerce will shine in a gloomy time like this.  Consumers have always feared "buyer's remorse".  With U.S. unemployment at 7.6% and rising, in addition to the multi-trillion dollar decrease in consumer wealth, purchases will be scrutinized like never before.  And I believe customer ratings and reviews, as well as all forms of customer-generated content (and word of mouth), will be leveraged like never before.  From reducing returns to increasing sales, it is clear that social commerce reduces buyer's remorse.  This isn't just a U.S. trend, as the economic problems are global and buyer's remorse is a common human behavior, and I believe this is the driver behind Sam's recent post on UK consumers flocking to social commerce.

If you missed Sam's post in November on Amazon, I recommend you read it.  They were one of the few retailers online that recently announced stellar results during such a challenging retail season.

Our clients have been stepping up their pace of innovation with social commerce.  You can see it reflected in our many blog posts in the last two months, especially the one from Heather about the unprecented number of holiday promotions we helped drive with our Community Managers.

This will be a huge year for social commerce.  Our company is signing clients at a faster pace than ever before.  Innovation is accelerating rapidly, and not just online.  The ROI is very proven.  And I'm proud of the way we are helping our clients in such a challenging time.

Come join us from April 27-29th in Austin at our Social Commerce Summit to discuss how the best are leveraging social commerce.  We sincerely look forward to seeing you there.

Retail growth, even online retail, is declining. However, the decline is steeper if you are losing market share and customers to Amazon. The Morgan Stanley reports customer satisfaction and recommendations are key drivers to Amazon gaining market share. I just heard Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, present and talk about how their focus on customer service (and they have a lot of reviews) has driven their sales to $1B.

Show this graph to your CEO, CMO and CFO if you're having a difficult time getting buy-in to social commerce initiatives. Every day you are not capturing your customer's voice is a day that you are not building a marketing asset and annuity that pays off, as evidenced by this graph of Amazon capturing UGC for 12 years. NOW is the time to begin or accelerate your use of social commerce to attract and retain customers.

ForeSee Results annual retail study suggests that sites with reviews garner 21% increase in customer satisfaction vs. sites that don't. The use of the data and content are driving retailers to improve product selection and merchandising, and to reach out to dissatisfied customers. And this user-generated content is driving real top-line and bottom-line numbers – natural search, conversion, AOV, lower returns, and many other financial benefits. See the case studies; see the stats and research.

Amazon has been featuring reviews for 12 years, but now many of our clients are embracing social commerce and we're helping them accelerate the impact of their customer voices to compete effectively. Because of our focus, as a partner we can deliver a superior user-generated content experience for contributors and visitors….faster moderation turnaround, more robust functionality, flexible integration with your partners, alerts/analytics, and best practices to drive contribution and marketing through our dedicated community managers. Plus, we go beyond reviews and help you change your culture, bringing customer oxygen across the functions of your organization.

Amazon is a great company. The impact of UGC and Social Commerce for them has been under-reported. It has been their best kept secret. No more. We've been at this for three years now with nearly 300 clients as of today. We passionately believe that the future of online shopping is here through customer contribution and leveraging influentials. Reviews are table stakes of retailers (those aren't our words), and there are other UGC applications (such as Ask & Answer and Stories) to take the impact of customer contribution to a new level.

Maintaining growth includes not losing market share. Your best customers are the ones you keep. Get them involved in writing and reading the most compelling content you can have on your site — the content that doesn't come from you!

I apologize if this comes across as "selling," but as a former retailer myself, I firmly and passionately believe this is something that deserves urgency and acceleration. The studies, results, ROI, and now the macro analysis of market share shown above reinforce my conviction that if I were in your shoes, I'd get the organization focused on Social Commerce to retain (and grow) your market share.

When voting moves online, as it undoubtedly will (just think about all of the tax money we would save if we did not have to set up temporary voting centers everywhere), the marriage of social media and election campaigns will be that much more profound.

To be frank, I do realize that the title of my post is too far reaching.  The reality is that Obama is a truly great man and therefore a good subject for word of mouth to flourish about.  Andy Sernovitz, the founder of WOMMA and Bazaarvoice Advisory Board member, has taught us – great subjects (products, people, services, etc.) easily generate word of mouth by just asking people to help and share.

On a personal note, I took a short vacation this weekend in Laguna Beach to recharge after my week in Amsterdam to speak at Shop.org's first Global E-Commerce Summit, then back to Austin for Halloween (I couldn't miss it with our 4-year old daughter), followed by a week in London for our own sold-out Summit (recap here).  I'm here for the Piper Jaffray Global Internet Summit kicking off on Monday night.  And vacation allowed me catch up on reading some great opinion pieces in the NY Times.  This is a truly historic period that we are living in, and I encourage you to read a few of these if you have the time – they are well worth it:

• It Still Felt Good the Morning After by Frank Rich
• Show Me the Money by The World Is Flat author Tom Friedman
• Obama and the War on Brains by Nicholas Kristof
• The Climate for Change by Al Gore

While all of the findings are of interest (mobile, widgets, personalization, etc.), this year I was most struck by three big trends:

•  The global traffic share gains of YouTube, Facebook, Hi5, Wikipedia, and Orkut – all making the global top-10 for the first time.  I remember when Time selected "You" as the "Person of the Year" for their Dec. 2006 cover.  They may have called it too early.  Social connection online has truly arrived.  The growth of these sites are staggering, highlighting the power of community, user-generated content, and word of mouth online.
• The share gain of Amazon.com relative to large, multichannel retailers.  They led the way with customer reviews over 10 years ago, and have become a Wikipedia of sorts for broad, product-focused reviews.  And they continue to innovate at a staggering pace, spending over $3 billion per year on R&D.
• The uncharted territory we are in with the recession, truly making this our most important presidential election in history.  Although Bazaarvoice is growing at a very fast pace, beating our financial projections repeatedly, we are also cautious and watching the economy closely.  And I know that most, if not all, of our clients and partners are doing the same.

In case you missed the link above, you can read the full report here.

And if you have some more time this weekend, you may also want to check out Steve Jobs' recent keynote on the iPhone 2.  While I carry a BlackBerry myself (my wife carries an iPhone), the power of the iPhone's new programming language (and SDK) to deploy corporate applications as well as the new AppStore (reminds me of Salesforce.com's AppExchange) signal a new type of Apple.  With these moves, they are embracing being an "open" platform and focusing on B2B at the same time.  This should lead to an accelerated adoption of Macs in corporations, as the iPhone uses the same OS and user behavior historically shuns change (or seeks familiarity; heck this is human behavior not just 'user' behavior).  In any case, his keynote may lead you to believe that the iPhone 2 will be the dominant mobile computing platform for corporations in our near-term future.