• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, December 14, 2011

That funny cat video you just watched? Did you hear about it on Facebook? How about that helpful how-to clip from a hardware company? Did someone share it with you on Twitter?

Social channels are among the most popular means of discovery for online video, whether for branded videos, TV clips or user-generated content. That’s why TV networks are jumping into the social TV business, in the hopes that viewers will connect with their shows via social recommendations, and it’s also why the social video realm is taking off.

Just this week, social video got a twin boost. The social video platform company Jun Group  snagged $2.5 million in financing from Western Technology Investment, an early investor in Facebook and plans to use the money to build its sales, business development, and client services team, which tripled in 2011, Jun said. Jun Group has powered social video and opt-in video ad campaigns across social networks, mobile devices and YouTube for brands such as Subway, Duncan Hines, Dove and Coca-Cola. On average its campaigns are generating 5% to 8% interaction, which could include liking a brand’s page, visiting a Web site, or sharing a video on Twitter, as examples, Jun Group said.

Then there’s Twitvid, which relaunched this week as a so-called “open social video network.” It had operated as a sort of Twitter “add-on” as a way for Twitter users to share videos similar to how they share photos via Twitpic. With the redo, Twitvid will rely on follow lists and feeds, combining tools that have worked well on Twitter and Facebook, and will also enable open connectivity to those services.

Whether Twitvid becomes a prominent way to find and share videos remains to be seen. But what is clear is that brands, and the platforms that count them as clients, are seeing green in social video.