Twitter More Important than LinkedIN for Small Biz?

[Kyle Lacy]

I love polling. Sometimes you take it for what it's worth... and sometimes it blows you away. I stumbled across a post by ReadWriteWeb about a polling completed on LinkedIN asking their members What is the most important new platform for brands to master?
and the results?

Talk about an interesting development? Facebook even beat out the famous business networking site for social media brand development! What is even more interesting is that small business owners made up 76% of the votes (out of a total of 3,600).

What does this mean for marketing and social media?

Business owners are starting to take notice of the growing trend in the social media world and the ability for businesses to use networks to drive revenue. The influence of the social Internet age is growing exponentially.

My question to all the business owners and marketing directors is this... What are you going to do with this information? Is it time to take the dive and joining the Twitter or Facebook community?

Is your brand going to be hurt if you do not join the masses?

[Kathy Carandang]

I'm on board with twitter. I'm on board with anything that will get my business noticed. I am committed to get www.walkezstore.com off the ground in leaps and bounds with whatever it takes. I am at level 5 with this commitment. Committed WIT! I have to say, of the S M I do so far, twitter seems to be the easiest for me. I know I'm got a way to go before I'm on board with it all but I'm working on it. This is a whole new ballgame for me in how to do business. I'm from a bit of the old school, so learning the new rules is a challenge that is keeping me young. LOL I'm only 25 anyway! Right!

[Johnnie Firari]

Not sure if it will hurt your brand but not participating may put you out of business, if you have strong competitors. If your competition is involved, you have to get in the game and play regardless of what you think. If your competition is not involved in Social Media, then what better time to get ahead of them and start. The only other option is to brand or advertise your business differently from what your competition is doing. I have a solution for this but no self promotion tonight.
Business owners still need to use Social Media tools correctly or it could hurt their business. One absolute no no for me, is seeing a business with a twitter account and not having any post for a month and no following. This gives me the same feeling I have, when businesses have a blog on their website but no post in the past 45 days. I simply feel as if they went out of business! Of course, I understand they are usually still in business but it just does not provide a good boost of confidence for me to consider giving my business to them.
For those not using Social Media, it is time to get educated and speak to those who you notice most involved in Social Media. You want to make sure you maximize results and prevent any possible damage to your business.

If you decide to hire someone beware of those that say "I can help you with your Social Media". If you have never notice them due to Social Media, do not hire them.

Final note on the poll. Could the results be really based off when each community launched? Linkedin launched in "03", Facebook launched in "04" and Twitter launched in "06". Could this be why the poll measures the way it does? Which platform is the most important/valuable if a business owner had to choose one?