• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, June 4, 2012

The latest example of how social discovery features can grow a video site or service comes from MeFeedia. The company aggregates videos from about 35,000 sources, and after switching from a video search platform to one that integrates social into the user experience, MeFeedia said it has grown its traffic 20 times in six months from 350,000 uniques to 7 million uniques per month in the United States, according to data from comScore.

The company also learned that social referrals resulted in a 55% increase in engagement over search and other ways of discovering videos. Social video users watched videos for longer and shared more videos if they had been referred by a friend. By contrast, users who found videos through search watched more videos but for less time. The engagement boost is particularly noteworthy because it underscores that consumers increasingly are turning to their online friends and fans for recommendations on what to watch when it comes to both online video and TV.

Viacom also said in a recent study that TV viewers engage in seven different types of social TV activities each week, which could include watching TV with others, as well as viewing TV clips on social networks -- and they do so to communicate, consume content and check comments, Viacom sid.