Google has shared the top retail searches for the 2009 holiday season. These results are based on the company’s Insights for Search tool.

"Using Google Insights for Search, we can see that the hottest toys over the last seven days include stalwarts like Pikachu and Legos, as well as newcomers, such as the Nerf Marshmellow Shooter and the surprise hit of the holiday season, a blanket-with-sleeves known as the Snuggie," says Eric Lopez of the Google Retail Team.

We talk a lot about social media marketing – using social networks like Facebook and Twitter to market brands and drive traffic to sites. There is no question that these can be effective tools for doing both of these things.