If you were to ask “over 200 social media leaders” which social media site they would pay for if they had to, as Abrams Research recently did, Facebook would come out on top, with 32.2 percent saying they would pay for it. (Yeah, right). LinkedIn was second, Twitter was third, and MySpace and Digg tied for last place (with only 1.5 percent of respondents saying they’d pay for those services).
But if you ask, which one would they recommend for businesses to pay for (if they had to), Twitter beats Facebook by more than two to one (39.6 percent vs. 15.3 percent). LinkedIn again comes in second. Why did Twitter come out on top. It is seen as an efficient way for companies to get their marketing messages out there. One typical response:
It’s the quickest way I’ve seen to spread information virally to a wide scope of people attached in a lot of random ways.
The survey was taken at Social Media Week 2009 and included “founders, bloggers, journalists, entrepreneurs and members of the Twitterati.” Basically it is the opinion of the insular social media elite. So what they say may just be wishful thinking, but the results are good fodder for discussion nonetheless.
Abrams also asked which social media service is most likely to die first. ImInLikeWithYou is given the worst odds of survival, followed by Bebo, and FriendFeed. Below are the questions and the results. Pipe in with your own answers in comments.
1. Which social media service would you be most likely to pay for?
Facebook 32.2%
Linkedin 29.7%
Twitter 21.8%
YouTube 13.4%
MySpace 1.5%
Digg 1.5%2. What social media service would you advise a business pay for?
Twitter 39.6%
Linkedin 21.3%
YouTube 18.8%
Facebook 15.3%
Digg 3.0%
MySpace 2.0%3. Which social media service will be the first to die?
ImInLikeWithYou.com 41.1%
Bebo 12.4%
FriendFeed 8.9%
Meetup.com 8.4%
Flixster 6.9%
Digg 5.0%
Last.fm 3.0%
Other 14.4%4. Which corporation has done the best job of using social media? (Respondents were asked to choose
one; these were the most popular choices, ranked accordingly)
1. Zappos (online shopping site)
2. Obama (campaign and presidency)
3. CNN
4. Comcast (“Comcast Cares”)
5. Jetblue
6. Dell
7. Burger King
8. NPR
9. New York Times
10. Ford
Personally, I like linkedin more than facebook and twitter
A better question to ask is how many of the “Social Media Elite” actually know anything about running a business? Why would anyone take business advice from people who don’t know anything about monetization or business in general?
If you’re a CEO or Marketer taking advice from surveys like this and folks like these, you’re in trouble.
To be totally honest until i did this job for MT I didn’t even know twitter existed…so therefore I do think it isn’t even close to facebook’s popularity.
omg another twitter post !
what worse – TC’s hundreds of posts on twitter or the hundreds of comments bitching about TC’s hundreds of posts on twitter?
TC is obviously not going to stop its retarded love affair with twitter. Just let it go.
what worst is losers like you complaining about those bitching.
l o l
i ‘ll tell you what’s worse, hundreds of posts bitching about those who bitch about those who bitch about TC’s obsession with twitter.
obviously those “social media leaders” read too much TC
There is such a thing as “too much techcrunch” ?
It’s not really a surprise as Facebook does not really target business…
And i agree with Jason, i like way more LinkedIn than Twitter (in fact i deleted my Twitter account after 1month of use, just useless)
How can you not agree with this statement. Facebook has a lot more “fluff” for customers to look through, they’ll get bored easier.
http://tr.im/gk8j
For full benefits on LinkedIn you need to come with money. Is not the same with other free social networks.
I have a Facebook page for my office in addition to my “real” website, but knowing exactly what what link to share so people can find it is a chore. I get much better results by posting things on Twitter and allowing Twitter to update my Facebook status.
I have around 270 follows. When I post a link to a new blog entry, it seems to get indexed in Google in a matter of hours. I recently posted a consumer alert regarding a local business on my blog and sent out the link via Twitter. Withing 2 hours, it was already showing on the front page of searches for the business in question.
I’m going to create a startup that tracks how often Twitter is reported on, and in contrast, how often TC reporters claim they don’t.
Social Media “experts”…
They like twitter for business because it’s their personal concierge.
“Let’s not piss off the asshole with 23,000 followers, let’s take care of that guy”
Those of us who aren’t Twitter sluts (we’ll follow anyone who will follow us) don’t get that kind of service.
Besides, a DM from a business based on tweets I’m making is spam.
If twitter goes mainstream it will be like when usenet was plagued with AOL users.
Useful, but it’s hard not to remember that many of the “insular social media elite” includes people who have less than six months of internet business experience and no formal training in marketing, etc. On the last question in the survey, notice how most of those companies listed used a cross platform approach – not just internet – to drive their message. It shows that companies can’t rely on just one platform but need all to truly profilerate the market with their message/brand.
I always see Zappos on these lists of companies that make the best use of social media. Has the company ever published any stats saying they increased brand awareness by X% or increased sales by X% as a direct result of their social media activities. I get that they’re the poster child because the CEO manages their Twitter account and everything, but I would like to see if they have any real results. Anyone?
Haven’t seen anything, other than everyone seems to love working there… http://money.cn...rtune/index.htm
haha i almost fell over laughing reading that. of course 200 “leaders” (another term for old guys) would say iminlikewithyou would fail as a social media site because it stopped being a social media site 8 months ago! it’s a game site with social features. And they don’t use it because it’s over 1mm HS and college students who use it. that this passes for news is only an indication of…. the general lack of news.
These “Social Media Elite” are like a giant feedback loop (or maybe circle jerk). They say how important their tools are and point to each other as examples, but never really have much concrete to show.
Social Media can be useful, but it’s not a business unto itself (either yet or for the foreseeable future).
“It’s the quickest way I’ve seen to spread information virally to a wide scope of people attached in a lot of random ways.”
I like the social media elite who don’t know what virally means. Yes, things can spread virally through twitter, but you (a marketer) cannot spread things virally! Do they even know what they are talking about?
You can broadcast on twitter, and hope what you tweet gets picked up and spread virally, but that’s about it. It’s like social media experts have all of the lingo of advertising with no understanding of the context.
Done wrong and marketing on twitter is like broadcasting into blank spectrum. If people are interested in your company, it’s just another way to disseminate information.
As has been pointed out above, many of “the insular social media elite” have never run a business or been involved in true business analysis and development work – they see social media as a panacea to all ills, it is not; you have to take a multi-channel cross-platform approach to real business.
Ask a social media guru how to effectively monetize a business that isn’t purely online and you’ve thrown them immediately – even though monetization and profit is of course the fundamental core of 99% of actual businesses.
I have *some* grounds for my comments here, I’ve been running a profitable blended online/offline social events organisation/social networking site since 1995 that people pay $80+ per year to use. So people *are* happy to pay for this stuff, but it needs to be useful.
i would say it really depends on the business, as some businesses can effectively leverage facebook better than others – same goes for twitter and its current user base.
Twitter will really keep you on the pulse of what is happening in the internet world today. Facebook can allow you to be social with others in a more personal way, beyond just 140 character formats. I think they both work.
So what if Twitter can help Businesses get their key messages over the Internet more effectively and directly.
It still doesn’t mean that the online audience that is receiving these relevant messages, will want to rush out and purchase any products or services which these message carriers are attached too.
Shopping is better than Twitter for Businesses, as users prefer to see the whole picture and not a plain little Tweet.
Wait until evil Spammers get on board and Twiddle their Twaddle to turn Twitter Tweak.
It’s purely speculative questioning – so a lot of fluff in the results of the survey. However, I kind of agree with how folks answered the survey. Personally I’d pay for Facebook before any other service (only because all my real friends are on it) and I’d advise businesses to pay for Twitter (if Biz Stone ever decides to charge) first because it’s the easiest way to reach and foster relationships with a fairly wide audience – very quickly.
twitter is a self-selected group right now and news travel faster / carry heavier weight there at the moment. I wonder what will happen when 10,20, 30% of the population is on it – the situation facebook is in presently.
I agree with many of the people before, this is a heavily biased survey that says little about how people in the “real world” would act if asked the same question. Why not do a survey, if you are going to do one and are interested in the results, of a random sample of real people rather than consultants and trying to generalize the results past this highly specific group?
A marketer cannot have a viral marketing campaign but they can have an internet marketing campaign. They may hope an aspect of their campaign goes viral but that is about it.
This point has already been made already but it needs emphasizing.
Twitter is definitely best for a quick rise in visibility not so sure about the lasting effects though. The real test would be to use twitter then to silence it and see how quickly the numbers fall off.
Please stop posting inane crap about Twitter. Of course the “social media” elite believe twitter is better than facebook… they’re all drinking the same kool-aid. Seriously, are there any twitter-free alternatives to TechCrunch?
Another great application for business is http://www.twibeo.com
For our site we are finding that FB and twitter work the best – social networking is very addictive and has incredible value if used correctly.
Great post
I’d pay for Twitter, and I’d say Twitter could be the most worth-while investment for *some* businesses. Twitter is our third biggest traffic driver, next to search engines and direct traffic. I don’t care what the haters say
that analogy is true still: linkedin is the office; myspace is the bar/club/rock concert; facebook is the school reunion; twitter is happy hour; [guess that makes StoryOfMyLife.com the backyard bbq!]
I never business network on FB or MySpace. Strictly personal and for friends.
I would pay for twitter corporate acc’t if it had better features.
I would not pay for FB (unless they held my data hostage) nor MySpace and am fine with them supporting thru ads. LinkedIn is great when we hire – we get almost all our hires from there or direct referrals, so we go on and off it.
I don’t think i’m alone either, and i’m hardly anyone’s “social media elite.”
Twitter Rules!
I am not a Twitter hater – as I think it is a cool site.
But please can people just calm down abit.
Twitter is cool – I just wish I could do more with it. Click to call on people’s profiles would be nice – they *could* integrate FreeVoiceLine into it if they wanted to I suppose. That would give people the ability to call friends and family with the click of a button.
I mean, I did write an open API that they could use, and considering that the service is FREE, it would seem like a good fit. I dunno.. just a thought.
It would be nice if Twitter created a page where we can post all our business links with a short description: http://www.ry-enterprises.com
It would cool if twitter created a page to place all members business links with a short description.
Roy Revill / RY Enterprises
http://www.ry-enterprises.com
Beside Finance and investment I like to discuss advertising,and I agree that twitter is more sincere then a facebook does,I appreciate twitter as well and recommended it as well for all business owner,the reason why I said it because with twitter involvement :I think the ads will look “not like an ads,I think it has “Personal recommendation from the twitter leader as well with simple style and familiar impression”
My personal feeling on this issue is that twitter is heads-and-shoulders above FB for networking, making it far more valuable from a business perspective. Twitter allows you to quickly connect with like minded people, establishing links that can quickly grow your business. FB has privacy tools that are a big benefit to its non-business users. Privacy & control of content is going to be a big challenge for all social media platforms.
I don’t think this is a meaningful question–its too vague. E.g., which is better, e-mail or RSS? Without at least a few business objectives to frame the question, there is no answer.
pay? no way! {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/rjZcnhlquA_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”pay? no way! ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/V2KxfDTcNL”}}}
I agree with the Twitter assessment for businesses. It’s a much better tool when it comes to viraly spreading information. Facebook has too many restrictions and I suspect there will be a backlash coming soon. Prominent people have been kicked off the network because of having too many friends, which is ridiculous.
I’m surprised Bebo and FriendFeed are still around.
@MatthewLoop
could not agree more
For business use, and when used correctly twitter is 100% better.
For sharing photos of your last night out on the town with your mates, facebook
Well there is a lot of negative comments here and however you choose to do biz dev that most certainly does not help you get new business.
I have been working in Interactive many years and have fortune 500 companies in my portfolio. I will say that I have used Facebook and Twitter to find both new business and to maintain relationships with current clients. I have however never found Linkedin to be useful for more than checking the background of applicants that are applying for work.
I have been to more networking functions than I care to remember from Vancouver to New York and have connected with more Sr. Marketing executives on twitter than any of those functions.
I am sure that you will read my blog and complain by the posts that I am just another social media advocate blind to little else, but to be quite honest I was not really into social media until quite recently and until that point, word of mouth, cold calls and real world networking was how I did new biz. I still do all of that but now have FB and Twitter in the mix to round out the effort. Considering the downward financial my business has never been busier.
Twitter might me discounted by many that don’t use it but remember what the telegraph companies said about the invention of the telephone and what the record companies said about mp3’s. Both proclaimed them to be useless fads with no staying power.
The jury is still out on both but why not explore it and see what you find.
Campaign for VA Governor is embracing Social Networking on the same if not better level than Obama.
For anyone interested in analysis of social networks, I am conducting a survey on Twitter users and usage for my PhD thesis in Dublin City University:
http://tinyurl.com/cpp4k4
It only takes 5 mins and the more responses we get the better so please feel free to particpate or retweet if you get a chance!
That is great info I totally agree Twitter is going to be the DOMINANT social media site for business.
I would rather pay for Facebook, but that could change if Twitter was more strict on spam. The power of Twitter is undeniable but sometimes you just want to punch spammers in the face for dampening the experience.