When it comes to which social media channels have the most potential to help small businesses, respondents to a recent survey said LinkedIn topped the list.

The Wall Street Journal and Vistage International, a San Diego-based management advisory firm, surveyed 835 business owners in early January on the value of social media tools.

Forty-one percent of respondents said LinkedIn was their first choice. YouTube was their second choice at 16% followed by 14% for Facebook.

Only 3% of the survey's respondents chose Twitter, according to the survey.

In a Wall Street Journal article, some small business owners complained that Twitter lacked ways to offer meaningful engagement, users on the channel have short attention spans and tend not to go there to shop.

One business owner said of LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn has been the dominant traffic driver to his site for the past two years. Another entrepreneur said Twitter doesn't support images as effectively as Facebook and Pinterest.

Twitter executives acknowledged that a small business ad service launched nearly a year ago is still being tested among a certain group of clients.

According to the survey, four in 10 businesses said they have employees dedicated to social media campaigns with nearly half of them spending between one and five hours a week on social media and one-third not spending any time on the channels.

The Wall Street Journal/Vistage survey gathered feedback from businesses in a number of industries with less than $20 million in annual revenue.

Instant Insights /

Twitter Falls Flat, LinkedIn Reigns with Small Businesses: Survey

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