Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

Jupiter Research released a report saying that marketers are looking to social networks as one of their key strategies to try to break through all the media clutter.

Last year about 38 percent of marketers looked to social networks, while this year that has increased to 48 percent of those looking to brand through their advertising, said Jupiter.

"Thirty percent of frequent social networkers trust their peers' opinions when making a major purchase decision, but only ten percent trust advertisements," said Emily Riley, JupiterResearch analyst and lead author of the report. "Consequently, brand marketers must harness brand advocates and influentials by providing additional motivation for frequent networkers to engage in social marketing."

One of the most used methods is to simply create a presence through a profile on a social networking site. While there is the potential for negative feedback, that's a small price to pay to get your brand before an audience. But people are starting to understand the difference between constructive feedback and ranters, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

But there isn't any one thing or method that would work best, and online communities aren't necessarily the best for all brands - there are other things that work as well or better. What seems to be happening is that companies are simply including it as a part of their overall strategy.

One reason I think that profiles are being used extensively is that it's a pretty safe way to enter the space with a fairly minimal downside. Brands that do that don't need to be concerned about what they're name may be put next to using that method.