A recent survey of online sellers by the research firm Forrester and the marketing resource MarketingProfs found that in a recession, the first marketing channel online sellers said they would increase investment in would be social media. The beauty of using social networking sites for marketing is that it’s cost-effective and, if done right, can establish and strengthen your company’s brand and generate the sales you want.

 
Connection and engagement are the heart and soul of online social networking. Two ways to achieve successful connection and engagement are through video sites like YouTube and through open identity programs like Google Friend Connect, MySpaceID, and Facebook Connect.
 
When business-to-business (B2B) buyers look for resources to help guide their purchases, they are most likely visiting sites like YouTube. Home to a growing amount of B2B content, YouTube welcomes marketers trying to reach these potential customers.
 
According to eMarketer, which conducts market research and trend analysis on the Internet, e-commerce, online marketing, media, and emerging technologies, more than half of the US population now watches video online, and eMarketer predicts that there will be 190 million video viewers in the United States in 2012.
 
By that time, almost nine out of 10 Internet users will be watching videos online!
 
Why all this growth? Videos grab users’ attention and make your message stick. In fact, research firm MarketingSherpa reported that more than 98% of business technology decision makers found viral videos to be more memorable than other forms of marketing.
 
If you’re not already using YouTube for online marketing, a good place to start is with a YouTube channel. You can customize your channel so visitors can access your videos, post comments, and engage with your brand and business. Recorded webinars, product demos, video case studies, industry events, and advertisements are just a few of the ways you can use video to engage potential customers.
 
Another way to engage and connect is through open identity programs like Google Friend Connect, MySpaceID, and Facebook Connect. For marketers, these open identity programs are a significant advance in social advertising due to the cumulative power of sending information across connected sites.
 
For example, Facebook Connect is a new application on the Facebook platform that allows users to integrate their Facebook data into their own site. Users can connect their Facebook profile to any partner website, including Amiando, CBS.com, CitySearch, CNET, CollegeHumor, Disney-ABC, Evita, Flock, Hulu, Kongregate, Loopt, Plaxo, Radar, Red Bull, Seesmic, Social thing. , StumbleUpon, The Insider, Twitter, Uber, Vimeo and Xobni. By applying a small snippet of code, Facebook Connect enables seamless integration with the Facebook platform. A visitor logs into a “connected” blog with their Facebook ID, which allows their profile to appear on the blog and links comments to their Facebook activity feed.
 
This gives your website a new level of dynamic social context because you can link to your Facebook friends and post information to Facebook news feeds.
 
In today’s business environment, it’s important to take advantage of every opportunity to not only get in front of your potential customers, but also connect and engage them. Marketing through social networking sites is a great way to accomplish this.