Social Media Examiner, an online guide to the social media industry just released their annual report entitled “State of Social Media Marketing Industry”. The report covered the most popular social media marketing channels, however, I will focus this blog post and my review on how online marketers will use online video in combination with social media in 2011. The analysis of the current state of social media included more than 3300 marketers.

The report highlights the increasing importance of online video for businesses, in fact, 77% of marketers have plans to increase their video marketing in 2011. This percentage increases to 82% for businesses with 1000 employees or more. Another top area of focus for businesses in 2011 in social media – a remarkable 92% of marketers use Facebook and 72% of them plan on increasing their activity. In a 2009 study, only 77% of businesses were using Facebook – the increase over the past two years is probably attributable to Facebook’s effort to becoming friendlier to business marketers. LinkedIn has also become an increasingly important marketing channel for business as well, 61% will increase their use of LinkedIn (71% of B2B vs. 51% of B2C). Incidentally, MySpace appears to be out of the race as 81% of respondents do not have any plans to use that social media platform for business marketing.

For those of you who have been involved in social media over the past 2-3 years, it is no surprise that social media has infiltrated much of online marketing. At the same time, I would suggest, that if you or your clients are still uncertain about the use of online video in combination with social media then you may want to take another look at the effectiveness of video. Businesses clearly see a need for allocating more of their marketing budget to video production and video marketing.

Facebook is an excellent place to upload videos, however, be mindful of your EdgeRank which determines if or where your video will be displayed in users’ newsfeeds. In other words, your video does require some newsfeed optimization, (To find out more about EdgeRank you may want to watch this video). The good news is that video generally ranks higher in the newsfeed than general status updates and the video consumption on Facebook in growing rapidly. At the same time it is worth mentioning that Facebook users do not like being sold to in an aggressive manner but they do seek out businesses on Facebook to learn more about certain products and services.

You may also want to consider adding your company video to your LinkedIn profile. I think this is a good opportunity to provide your profile viewers with a video introduction to your products and services. If you are a job seeker, you may want to engage potential employers with a video resume.

What is the marketing take away?

Marketers (B2B and B2C) are clearly eager to engage their customers on social media platforms and they are doing so with significantly increased attention to online video.

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