Headline: Social media promotion is the real deal for the 2009 holiday season.

Details: eTailers and brick and mortar retailers are keyed up for using social media for this holiday season. eMarketer released some research last week that tells a great story for those publishers that know how to leverage the channel. Its a fair assumption that performance marketing advertisers will continue to look to leverage the channel, as the frequency of recommendation is much higher in social media — we see evidence here at MediaTrust that shows more advertisers including the channel on their campaigns. A few details on why:

“Social network users are a highly coveted group of consumers. Across all age brackets, they were more likely than average to make an online purchase,” according to a May 2009 survey by Anderson Analytics.

What’s more, social network users are sharing recommendations with greater frequency than generally expected. A Q1 2009 Razorfish survey of social network users found that some 29% reported sharing their views online at least every few weeks, while 10% said they made such contributions at least every few days.