Within the next two years, more than half of all retail sales, including offline and online activity, will in some way be affected by the web as consumers use the Internet more and more to research products before purchasing.

According to research by digital marketing firm ODM, companies will increase their social media marketing budgets by 34% by 2014. Clearly, social business is no longer an option but becoming more of a necessity for communicating and understanding consumers.

Here’s some food for thought about the power of social for B2C businesses:

via The Wall Blog