By Kevin McIntosh

Looks like Social Media is getting closer and closer to Santa in terms of having some influence around the holidays.

ComScore Research in Virginia released a report from a survey earlier in December that revealed holiday shoppers were relying more on social media for recommendations on holiday purchases in 2009.

According to the report, 28 percent of those who had begun their holiday shopping this season indicated that social media had influenced their purchases.

Consumer-generated product reviews were the most common form of social media influence (13 percent), followed by an expert product review (11 percent).

Facebook fan pages attracted seven percent of respondents who said they’d followed brands on Facebook to take advantage of special offers and deals. Another 6 percent said they have been influenced by a friend’s Facebook status update referring to a particular product.

Five percent of respondents indicated they had followed a company on Twitter to take advantage of special offers and deals, while 3 percent said that a friend’s “tweet” about a product influenced their purchase behavior.

Who knows, maybe next year kids will just tweet their wish lists to Santa.