Twitter is marketers’ favourite marketing tool

Twitter is the preferred tool of marketers, closely followed by Facebook, a survey by online business magazine, SocialMediaExaminer.com has found.

The 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, which canvassed opinion from almost 2,000 marketers, indicated that 88% of marketers use Twittter, while 87% use Facebook.

In third place was the online professional networking platform, LinkedIn, with 78% usage while 70% used blogs. Online video sites such as YouTube had the next-highest usage rate, at 46%.

An earlier version of this survey, released in 2009, found that blogs were in second place at 79%, and Facebook in fourth place at 77%. This would suggest that Facebook is growing in popularity for marketing and PR purposes. Another interesting finding was that men were significantly more likely than women to use YouTube or other video marketing tools.

A majority of marketers are using social media in their marketing efforts, but most have only been using it for a few months or less, according to other survey findings from SocialMediaExaminer.com. A significant combined 65% of marketers have either just started using social media or have been using it for a few months. With many marketers still experimenting, the PR industry is well placed to stake its claim within these rapidly developing online channels.