In a recent, unofficial poll posted by a member on the Plaxo network, the following results illustrate which social networks are being used by companies to grow their businesses.
The query was posted as "Which networking [site] has been more useful in improving your Biz?" Out of 320 votes, LinkedIn came out on top with 67% (215 votes)!
Here's the entire list of responses:
Linkedin - 67% at 215 votes
Plaxo - 13% at 42 votes
None - 7 % at 23 votes
Xing - 5% at 16 votes
All Others ....specified below... were 3% at 12 votes
Myspace - 2% at 7 votes
Facebook - 1% at 4 votes
Marzar - 0% at 1 vote
This poll confirms what I had suspected, that LinkedIn is more widely embraced by professionals for business reasons, while networks like Myspace and Facebook are more for the casual user for personal reasons.
While I think that these "casual networks" can be leveraged to market your product or service, I feel that many of the stories of companies successfully doing so may be hyped up. Still, viral marketing is a real technique that would behove any entrepreneur to try and exploit using a social network.
JM Kelly, The IT Entrepreneur