Here are eight stats around social media, online shopping, and social commerce in the UK.

1. Two-fifths of time on computers is spent communicating with other people.

As Ofcom reported in their 2010 Communications Market Report, the average UK adult spends two-fifths of their time on computers communicating with others. In fact, for 16 to 24 year-olds, communication dominates over half of computer use. We are social has a good digest of the socially-relevant content in Ofcom’s report on their blog, as well.

2. 1 in 5 UK adults prefers surfing the web to watching television.

The importance of communication is also represented in the shift from traditional, one-way media to conversational media online. Online activities such as emailing, texting, and social networking all command high attention and high importance scores from users, while traditional forms of media consumption – watching TV, listening to the radio, reading print media – attract much lower average attention scores, says Ofcom.

3. Social networking is now the most popular pastime in the UK.

As UK adults shift their free-time focus to online activities and communication, it’s no wonder social networking is now their most popular pastime. Simply Zesty reported in their video that 64% of UK adults have a profile on a social network. The average user spends just over six hours on social media sites per month. The importance of social networking could be contributing factor to the finding that 1 in 3 UK adults now agree with the statement, “I could not live without the internet.”

4. 74% of UK adults under 35 find some business benefit in their social media use.

According to a study from Salesforce and OnePoll, younger adults in the UK and Ireland find business benefits in their social media use, as do 52% of UK adults over 35. The research also shows that social media is on the rise at the workplace, with 46% of employees using these services at work every day. This figure rises to 56% for employees in their early 20s, and to two-thirds for those just entering to job market.

5. About a third of UK businesses now use social media to communicate with customers.

Given the business benefits UK adults find in social media, it follows that UK businesses are getting in the game. New figures from Virgin Media Business show 33% of the 5,000 U.K. businesses surveyed now use Twitter to communicate with customers, compared to 32% using Facebook and 29% using MySpace. "British businesses have been quick to see the opportunities that lie within social media and are helping lead the world in targeting this new form of media," said Andrew McGrath, Executive Director of Commercial Operations at Virgin Media Business.

6. 92% of people in the UK using online search now shop online.

Online shopping in the UK has grown from 66% to 67.3% during the last two years, says IMRG. Of those in the UK using online search, 91.9% are now shopping online. In fact, 78% of all UK internet users now look online for information about goods and services.

7. Consumers in the UK and Europe account for a third of global online sales.

Shopsafe reports that consumers the UK and Europe are responsible for over a third of all sales made online. This stat illustrates the buying power of European consumers, as they make up only 24% of the total number of internet users who shop online worldwide. IMRG predicts that European consumers will spend £456 billion in online and offline channels this year.

8. Traditional social network ads fail to engage 96% of users.

Engaging users on social networks is important for UK businesses – visitors arriving from social media sites are ten times as likely to make a purchase online as average internet users (71% vs. 7%). But The Telegraph reported that traditional social network ads fail to engage 96% of users. So, what works? Users “are looking for buyer reviews,” said Liane Dietrich, managing director of LinkShare, the affiliate network that conducted the research.

Just as in the US and in other global markets, “social” is becoming less of an afterthought and more of a necessity for UK businesses. Is your business keeping up?

B&Q shares the rules to social commerce in the UK.

Joanna Robb, Multi Channel Development Manager at B&Q (one of my clients), shares the strategy and tactics they’ve used to engage their community of customers and drive measurable results from online conversations. Register for the free webinar with ATG on 28 September here.

There’s still time to register for the London Social Commerce Summit!

Get real-world social tips and results from Europe’s top brands. Join Stephen Fry and speakers from Google, Forrester, Argos, JibJab, and Urban Outfitters for the UK’s definitive social commerce event on 6 October at the BFI IMAX at Waterloo. Register for the Summit here!

To illustrate some of the social touch-points brands have with holiday shoppers, let’s walk through fictional shopper Tara’s search for a gift for her friend, Neill.

Like 27% of holiday shoppers last year (according to eMarketer) and likely even more shoppers this year, Tara begins her gift search on social media. She heads to Neill’s Facebook profile to look for clues as to what he might like.

Shoppers are using social media to figure out what friends and family want for the holidays. Help them find the answer by encouraging your customers and site visitors to share gift ideas or wish lists with their social networks. PETCO, for example, includes social sharing buttons on every product page.

PETCO includes social network sharing buttons on every product page.

Had Neill shared a product directly from a retailer site like PETCO, his post would pull Tara into the purchase path. He unfortunately hasn’t shared any specific products, but as a live music lover, his recent posts indicate that he might like a digital pocket camcorder to take to concerts.

27% of shoppers who researched and bought holiday gifts online last year looked for ideas about what friends and family wanted on social media.

With her gift idea in mind, and like 59% of gift shoppers, Tara starts her specific gift search at a search engine. Regularly updated content like customer questions and reviews feeds the freshness search engines crave to boost search rankings. Indexing this content directly into product pages’ code maximizes this benefit – indexing drove a 17% increase in natural search for OpenTable. Make sure you’re properly indexing your UGC to show up in holiday shoppers’ gift searches.

Additionally, features like Google Rich Snippets place star ratings and review snippets directly in search results, drawing shopper attention. We’ve even seen UGC improve effectiveness of paid search ads – review content drove a 196% increase in paid search revenue for Office Depot. Use customers’ words in your search marketing to drive traffic.

Star ratings in search results grab shopper attention.

Tara’s search takes her to SmartStore’s shoot-and-share camcorder category page. Here, she finds a number of product options with similar specs and marketing copy.

Like endcaps and signage in a retail store, customer reviews draw Tara’s attention, and help her differentiate between like products. These authentic opinions are the most trusted form of advertising, with 70% and 90% of consumers trusting recommendations from unknown and known reviewers, respectively. Shoppers today expect and demand reviews – according to a ChannelAdvisor study, 83% of ALL holiday shoppers this year will be influenced by customer reviews.

Top-rated pages and ratings help shoppers narrow their choices.

On the category page, Tara can sort by rating to help narrow her choices, and she looks for products that have lots of reviews – number of reviews can be more important than star rating. Retailers and manufacturers should work together now to increase review volume in time for the holidays, both through customer participation and by syndicating reviews from brand sites to retail sites.

Ratings help Tara narrow her choices to a specific product. The product has high reviews, but Tara wonders if it's good for recording live music. Surveys have shown that having “no way to get a specific question answered” is the most frequent issue shoppers face online, and their search for answers can take them away from your site. Let customers ask questions directly on your site, where other customers and brand reps can answer them.

Tara posts her question on SmartStore's site, and SmartStore even tweets it to their followers to ensure a speedy answer.

Retailers can tweet customer reviews and questions to their followers.

A few days after posting her question, Tara receives an email from SmartStore – her question has been answered, and the email leads her directly back to the purchase path. Notify shoppers when their questions are answered to bring them back to your site.

Answers from actual product owners build confidence in hesitant shoppers. Click to enlarge.

Confident that she’s found the right gift for Neill, Tara adds the camcorder to her cart. And, realizing she’s under budget, she adds the peer-recommended carrying case to her order as well before checking out. SmartStore can rest assured Tara found the right product – UGC is proven to reduce return rates.

This is how many gift-hunters will shop this holiday season. Is your brand ready?

Want to connect with shoppers this holiday season? We can help.

See how every interaction with a consumer can help drives sales and increase loyalty in this three-minute video.

Ready to discuss how your business can benefit from any of these tips? Request a live demo to see how your brand can get social in time for the holidays.

In the past when a shopper was looking for a TV, they went to their local retail store. To combat choice overload in product aisles, shoppers were met with tools designed to influence their decisions and help them buy confidently. End-caps showed featured products. Signage and POP displays grabbed their attention. Sales staff was on hand to answer any questions. For manufacturers and retailers, these merchandising efforts were meant to lead the shopper to purchase their product.

Traditional merchandising efforts don’t translate to the social web.

But the decision-making process is no longer an in-store activity. Many shoppers are increasingly making their purchase decisions online before ever setting foot in a retail store; Forrester even predicts that by 2014, more than half of total retail sales will be influenced by the web. Today’s shoppers don’t go to a store to determine which TV they want — they already know which product they want when they arrive.

But traditional merchandising efforts don’t translate to the social web. Trust in marketing is gone — people want to hear from others like them. "Social" is no longer a label that can be applied to certain aspects of business and ignored in others; it's just one way to shop amongst all the ways we have always shopped. For merchandising to be relevant, it has to get social.

Social merchandising is all about context. Shoppers research online to discover products, compare or reduce choices, and build confidence in their final purchase decision. Bring contextual user-generated content (UGC) to the research process that maps back to the shopper's task. Here’s how UGC helps shoppers in some different phases of online decision-making.

Discovery phase

At the widest point in the purchase funnel, shoppers go online to discover products. This often starts in a search engine, and UGC equips pages with the scalable freshness that search engines crave to maximize search results and drive traffic. Increasingly for some shoppers, this search starts on social networks. Friends' shared reviews, questions, stories, and products on these networks introduce shoppers to new products and draw them into the purchase path.

Golfsmith shoppers can shop by golfer profile.

Once on an ecommerce site, shoppers in the discovery phase can shop by profile, starting their search on profiles of customers like them to see what products they like. UGC adds additional filters for discovering products, such as top-rated category pages.

Choice phase

Online, the same obstacle confronts shoppers as in-store — choice overload. Product specs and marketing copy can be nearly identical from product to product. Reviews and stories from "people like me" add a new filter to product choices to help shoppers decide.

Ecommerce doesn't exist in a vacuum. Most shoppers arrive on your site with preconceived notions about products and brands. UGC helps to validate or combat these with trustworthy testimonials from real customers.

Additionally, customer Q&A helps shoppers make choices based on their specific needs. Reviews and specs may lead a shopper to a specific flat-screen TV, but they may need more info to make a purchase. The ability to ask questions like "Can I hang this TV on my wall?" can lead to the information shoppers need to move past the choice phase and select a product for purchase.

Validation/confidence phase

Once they’ve decided on a particular product, UGC can give shoppers the last bit of confidence they need to make a purchase. Much like in the discovery phase, shoppers can check profiles of reviewers to make sure people like them like the product. With features like Facebook Connect, they can also see what their friends on social networks think of the product.

PETCO products with reviews 20.4% lower return rate. Click to read the case study.

Customer opinions also work to set expectations for shoppers. Reviews (especially negative reviews) give a realistic depiction of performance, leading to more satisfied buyers and decreased returns. And UGC can point out product details to help shoppers make the exactly right purchase for them — "These shoes are fantastic, but they run a little small. Be sure to get the next size up."

Shoppers are never alone online — networks of customers are always just a click away, ready to share their opinions. Will that click steer them away from your site? Social merchandising helps manufacturers and retailers alike by serving the end-goal of both — helping shoppers buy. As more shoppers make their decisions online before ever entering a retail store, merchandising must get social to stay relevant.

After lab tests for reception issues led Consumer Reports to recommend that readers skip the new iPhone in favor of an older model, The Unofficial Apple Weblog found that Apple’s support forum moderators were deleting threads referencing the poor review. The story has since been covered by sites like Wired, Financial Times, and Fox News.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: negative reviews are a gift. Here are five reasons Apple (and all manufacturers) should embrace and learn from their negative reviews.

1. Negative feedback builds authenticity.

The mere presence of some negative feedback on a site creates trust in the brand. A site full of nothing but glowing reviews can make a shopper skeptical – consumers fear “white washing” from the brand. Allowing a mix of positive and negative feedback shows customers you’re willing to let them share their authentic opinions, and that you care what they have to say.

2. What’s bad for some isn’t bad for everyone.

Not all shoppers will use your products in the same way, so negative reviews from one customer won’t necessarily deter another. A designer’s criticism of a laptop’s lack of adequate graphic design capabilities wouldn’t necessarily deter a college student seeking a laptop for schoolwork. A negative review from a mother about a remote control’s small parts won’t deter a bachelorette from buying it.

3. Reviews – even negative reviews – drive sales.

Case studies prove it: reviews drive sales. We’ve found that even products with three-star ratings sell better than products with no reviews at all. Quickbooks enabled customer reviews on ProAdvisors, experts businesses hire to help them use the software. They found that not only did ProAdvisors with reviews get more clicks than those without feedback, but the number of reviews was more important than the rating. For example, a ProAdvisor who rates four out of five stars but has nine reviews gets more clicks than a five-star ranked ProAdvisor with just two reviews.

4. Negative feedback uncovers opportunities to improve.

Reviews turn your customers into an ongoing group of beta testers, uncovering areas brands can improve their offering to deliver a better customer experience. Oriental Trading Company brings negative feedback to their vendors to create better-quality products. Land of Nod and QVC UK have done the same. Domino’s Pizza recently made headlines with their “Pizza Turnaround” campaign, publicizing their decision to act on customers’ feedback to radically change – and improve – their fifty-year-old recipe.

5. There’s nowhere to hide.

Consumers are reviewing your brand and products online, and as Trendwatching hypothesized in December, they’re doing so in real-time. Social media gives your customers a voice just as loud – if not louder than – your brand’s. Ignoring the negative feedback that’s out there won’t make it go away. And in this case, it only made things worse. What was one negative review (be it from an expert panel) has now become a national story on Apple censorship, with some bloggers going so far as to draw ironic comparisons to the brand’s infamous “1984” ad. Which did more damage – the poor review, or the censorship story that followed?

“Bad” reviews are not the enemy, they’re an opportunity. Brands that recognize the value of this feedback are acting on it – and reaping the rewards.

This stat came to mind when I read a recent Ad Age article, “They learned it by watching you.” The article discussed increases in marketing budgets focused on why consumers buy. Research ranges from watching consumers in stores to focus groups and surveys. Today’s marketers employ “a cadre of technologists and scientists to uncover consumer needs and emotional states… It’s hard to pinpoint how much is spent on shopper marketing, but estimates range from $3 billion to as high as $18 billion.”

Consumers readily and willingly contribute their opinions, knowledge, and experiences online about brands and products. In fact, some of our clients like Sephora have up to hundreds of reviews per product. So, why are brands still spending so much time and money on complex consumer research and focus groups that can easily cost six figures, span multiple cities, and reach consumers who may or may not even be target customers?

With all of the attention and investment going to these types of research, are manufacturers and retailers missing something? Focus groups and surveys place customers in an unnatural situation, overtly prompting them to explain their choices. These types of research are fundamentally flawed – most customers aren’t sure why they chose one product over another. A 2005 Business Week article, “Shoot the Focus Group,” highlighted the short-comings and response bias of traditional focus groups. This fundamental flaw was echoed by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink: “Asking someone to explain their [behavior and intent] is not only a psychological impossibility…but it biases them in favor of the known over the unknown.”

Internet Retailer reported that 66% of consumers shop online before making purchases, online or off. If consumers begin their product research online, shouldn’t companies focus their research there too? With the right combination of strategic partner and technology to help, brands can ask the customer why they buy while they are actively researching products. This approach is faster, 24×7, less expensive, more comprehensive, less overt, and less likely to cause response bias.

For example, one of our food product clients captured their customers’ experiences around healthy eating by asking customers to submit experiences in the form of stories online about what products and recipes worked for them. The campaign also asked consumers about themselves, with criteria like occupation, exercise frequency, favorite exercise, and favorite snack.

With this single prompt, consumers (without response bias or expensive testing equipment) contributed their experiences about a relevant topic, provided their interests and demographics, and highlighted the products they purchased. The brand can take this content and deeply analyze it to understand why customers bought these products, who these customers are, and what their other interests and motivations are.

Even better, manufacturers and retailers can conduct this research on their own sites. Using their sites, brands can combine consumer research with marketing outreach and user-generated content. People are more honest when they are relaxed and not under the pressure of an interview. And, with 82.5 million consumers willing to contribute, there will be no shortage of participants for consumer behavior research through UGC.

How CPG Brands Win Big with Social Media Marketing

Current and former execs from Rubbermaid and Kraft share real world stories of success through social commerce. Download the free webinar to learn how reviews are the new focus group.

Sameer Samat, Director of Product Management, Google

At our annual Social Commerce Summit in Austin today, we announced a partnership with Google to introduce an industry-first program that lets brands easily share product review content from their Bazaarvoice-enabled websites with Google properties: SyndicateVoice for Search. Sameer Samat, director of product management for Google Product Search, shared the benefits of the program with a sold-out Summit audience during his presentation, “Organizing the World’s Information for Shoppers.”

This partnership is an incredibly important milestone for Bazaarvoice and for the evolution of social commerce. Why?

We know that shoppers trust customer word of mouth, such as online product reviews, more than any other type of marketing (1). At the same time, 61% of all shoppers use search engines (2), and more people use Google Product Search than any shopping portal (3). Furthermore, user-generated content is becoming increasingly dominant in search results, with over 25% of results for searches of the world’s top 20 brands linking to UGC (4).

In partnership with Google, Bazaarvoice customers can now use SyndicateVoice for Search to combine their most trusted and valuable content – authentic reviews written by their customers – with the most popular search engine in the world to attract the most qualified shoppers to their site.

While this is a big win for brands, who face increasing competition for consumer attention and shopper loyalty each day, the real win is for consumers, who can now quickly find the information they need to make the right purchase decisions for their needs. We’re “democratizing commerce” by enabling consumers’ authentic feedback to help shoppers find exactly what they need, shifting more control of the shopping experience to the most important person in the process — the shopper.

For more information, check out Google’s blog post on the partnership, see their Google Product Reviews Program site, or read our official announcement.

(1) Edelman Trust Barometer, 2006-2009
(2) Compete Online Shopper Intelligence study, February 22, 2010
(3) Comparison Shopping Rankings from CPC Strategy, LLC, April 14, 2010
(4) Socialnomics 2009

CHEFS Catalog offers top-quality cooking gear to pros and in-home chefs alike – all their customers love to cook. To launch the “Julia [Child] and Jacques [Pepin] Cooking At Home” TV series, cookbook and DVD, they asked customers to share their personal stories about these two favorite chefs.

The response was overwhelming. Not only were they excited to share their stories, but they went on to share pictures of themselves, their families, and even delicious meals they had created. Profile information included their favorite types of food, how cooking makes them feel, and the styles of meals they prefer to cook. All this gives CHEFS – and its customers – great insights into the many types of people who buy from CHEFS.

CHEFS took their campaign a step further by enabling these storytellers to link their stories directly to their favorite CHEFS products, personally recommending them to fellow foodies. By integrating this new Bazaarvoice capability, Social Recommendations™, CHEFS creates true social shopping – customers recommending products to shoppers, based on their profile or stories.

Turns out, CHEFS customers enjoy recommending products – more than a third of the stories collected in the first three days include product links, and many include multiple product recommendations.

Such recommendations get to the heart of social shopping: customer-to-customer selling, where customers help shoppers discover exciting new products they may not have considered. All CHEFS did was give them a place to tell their stories, and the storytellers took it from there.

It’s important to note that this campaign didn’t center on products – it really centered on customers’ love for Julia Child. The product recommendations highlight these cooks’ favorite items, bringing commerce directly into the social realm.

Timing was critical for this first campaign, as the “Julie & Julia” movie premiered on July 28, and the series premiered on July 4. Working together, CHEFS and Bazaarvoice were able to get this campaign live in less than two weeks – and that included integrating links to all of their products.

This is just the first Stories campaign CHEFS has run. Stay tuned for more exciting Stories topics to come!

The first reviews shown are from Dell, a Bazaarvoice client. Because of the direct relationship with have with shopping sites such as Live.com, our clients are assured proper product matching, brand awareness, clicks, and natural search in-links from the Web's largest shopping sites. Our syndication partner network is the largest and most diverse customer reviews network, including portals and shopping comparison engines such as Live.com, Smarter.com, Google Product Search, and about 20 others.

Best of all, Bazaarvoice just announced syndication to these major portals is FREE through August 2008 to existing and future clients of Bazaarvoice Ratings and Reviews. Clients do nothing but sign a short agreement (after all, with Bazaarvoice the client owns their data). But as a service, we feed these reviews in different formats to our network of SyndicateVoice partners.

To learn more, or to sign up for free syndication to sites like Live.com, please talk to your Community Manager (if you are a client) or email us at info @ bazaarvoice.com or call 866-522-9227.