Research released late last year by news-giant and SMWF Gold Sponsor, CNN, revealed stark benefits for advertisers attached to news content that was shared by users across social media.

The POWNAR report, the name stands for ‘Power of News and Recommendation’, surveyed 2300 consumers over two months, using a number of sophisticated techniques to measure their engagement with particular news content.

The results showed a “halo effect” of substantially higher engagement with “recommended” news content and embedded advertising, as opposed to “randomly” consumed content and advertising.

“The commerciality of the social media space is fast becoming apparent and this study means that for the first time, we are able to substantiate the value of shared news from an advertising perspective”, said Didier Mormesse, Senior Vice President, Ad Sales Research, Development & Audience Insight at CNN International.

The study showed that 27% of all frequent sharers account for 87% of all news stories shared. The average global user shared 13 stories per week and received 26 through shared social media links or emails.

The most popular social networks – Facebook Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, accounted for 43% of all links shared, email 30%, SMS 15% and instant messenger 12%.

“Knowing the typology of shared content is significant as the information could be used by agencies as a guideline to mould creative and therefore make their advertising more effective to consumers,” said Mormesse.

You can see Didier Mormesse Senior Vice President, Ad Sales Research, Development & Audience Insight at CNN International, discussing the ramifications of these findings on Day Two of SMWF, taking place this week on 29-30 March at Olympia in London. For more information, see the event agenda.