Just 3% of Small-Business Owners Say Twitter Can Be Helpful for Them

If you’re a small-business owner, chances are you don’t think much of Twitter’s ability to help you. That’s according to a survey from The Wall Street Journal and Vistage International, which found that just 3 percent of the 835 business owners surveyed said Twitter had the most potential to help them.

LinkedIn was on the other end of the spectrum, with 41 percent of small-business owners saying the professional-oriented social network can potentially help their business. Meanwhile, 16 percent said the same about YouTube and 14 percent said the same of Facebook.

“The findings illustrate the challenges facing Twitter in demonstrating to small-business owners the benefits of using the short-messaging service to reach customers,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

The survey also found that 30 percent of small-business owners use LinkedIn regularly, while 22 percent use Facebook regularly, 14 percent use Twitter regularly, 13 percent use YouTube regularly, 7 percent use Google+ regularly and 3 percent use Pinterest regularly.

It appears that Twitter’s offer of $1 million in free credits to new small-business advertisers in honor of Small Business Saturday on Nov. 24 didn’t quite do much for the social network’s standing with that crowd.

According to a survey from VerticalResponse, 90 percent of small businesses are on Facebook, with 34 percent posting there several times a week, 17 percent posting once a day and 15 percent posting several times a day.

Meanwhile, VerticalResponse found that 70 percent of small businesses are on Twitter, but 31 percent never use it, while 21 percent post there several times a day and 21 percent post several times a week.