A new survey confirms exactly how popular Twitter has become among businesspeople, and also that surprisingly little business use is made of other high profile online social media platforms.



In fact, it's a case of 'out with the old, in the with the new', as nearly half the respondents making 'significant' use and a third 'modest use' of Twitter, while 90% reported that they make 'very low' or 'no' use of older social networking site MySpace.

It seems the usability, functionality, and demographic of Twitter fits perfectly with the business community.

The next most popular platform among the entrepreneurs surveyed was blogs, with just under 30 per cent of respondents making significant of their own blog, and a quarter making modest use.

Not surprisingly, dedicated business networks also ranked highly in the poll. Sixty percent of respondents said they made 'modest' or 'significant' used of LinkedIn, with 40 per cent using Ecademy to the same degree.

Interestingly, two of the largest online social networks, Facebook and YouTube, did not fare so well in the poll.

Only 16 per cent of respondents made significant use of Facebook in their business, while 55 per cent made very low or no use of it. The figures for Youtube are even worse, with just 5 per cent of respondents making significant use and fully 80 per cent describing their use as very low or none.

These figures make it clear that Twitter is the platform overwhelmingly favoured by the business community.

It's perhaps a little surprising, then, that very few of the entrepreneurs surveyed are satisfied with the business results they are seeing from their current Twitter activity.

Less than a third of respondents were happy with the business results they are seeing from Twitter, and 90 per cent admitted to having no strategy, and to making it up as they go along.

When asked what the impact of Twitter had been on their business revenue, 60 per cent of respondents answered that they had seen 'none' or 'very slight impact', or that they didn't know.

So, while it's clear that Twitter rules the roost as the new online business tool of choice, there is still a lot of work to be done educating the business community about effective Twitter for business strategy.