Email vs. Facebook & Twitter: What % of interactions are Business related?

The first thing that comes to mind is "what exactly is business related?" Brent, take our relationship, it started as networking, commenting on blogs, discussing industry trends - and sometimes your Friday night mix. Is this business, personal, both, does it matter. While we do not email exchange very often, I suppose when we do it is business focused.

Unlike Esteban, I believe that 96% is high, I believe my mix is closer to 87%. Joking aside, I use email for managing a youth soccer team, family stuff (parental unit conversations). I think it is less about the channel, and more about the purpose. I see email increasingly being used as a notification system (a real throw back) to go look at something, or go do something else. In other words, I receive a lot more emails than I send.

Basically, my social interaction "for business" are 100% business relate...LMAO

One thing for clarity, there are over 1600 social networking sites in English alone. Limiting the scope of social media tools to Twitter, Facebook and your Linked In network is NOT a social media strategy.

Those are the ones the so-called Social Media Gurus tout, but they are not the ones that work the best for ecommerce and ROI. I got nearly 35,000 followers on twitter and I can tell you scientifically that a blanket Twitter list has a call to action rate of about .0002%. While a Facebook fan page is maybe 10x better, I am still not impressed with a .002% rating.

If this is the portfolio for your social media strategy, then you WILL be seriously disappointed and will most likely waste a lot of time for little results...I concur whole hardily, doing that is a waste.

John (ColderICE)
http://www.ColderICE.com

Almost none of my Facebook interactions are business related. But I have to say I do keep up with some of my clients using Facebook which in turn helps me cultivate our business relationship.

Facebook for me is more like the old meeting at the "Water Cooler" to share stories about current events and the latest gossip. Twitter is a great tool for disseminating information in real time. It has both business and non-business uses for me. Linkedin is the only social media tool that I use that has been strictly business.

Email has always been my main point of contact. It has always been the focal means of business communication before, during and even after the social media craze.

If Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and any of the other social media forms of communication went away today I think we could all wake up the next day with our Email accounts and it will still be business as usual. On the other hand if our Email accounts went away I think we would have utter chaos and confusion in the business and personal world.

JB Brathwaite
http://www.2thenextlevel.com
http://www.twarketing.com
http://www.blogsitecomplete.com

For me Twitter is 95% business -- even the chatting is business related.

Facebook is more personal in interactions -- lots of family and friends on Facebook. Plus, I think Facebook by nature is not well suited to B2B businesses.

I would say that 70% of my email is business related 90% of my Tweets and 70% of Facebook is personal. However, I am terribly selective about who I friend and what images I post on Facebook because of the potential impact to my professional life. Same goes for Twitter.

Most of my Twitter (about 80%) is business and most of my Facebook (about 80%) is personal. All of my LinkeIn (about 100%) is business and most of my email (about 90%) is business. That does not mean that there isn't crossover between friends and business. People do business with people they like and I'd have to say I like most of the people I've met in the various #hashtag communities I hang out in. I've also gone on to friend many of them and interact socially about non business related matters via Facebook with them. I feel that it deepens our connection/relationship.

I break it down this way:

Email: All business except when making personal arrangements with friends, etc. Email is the business social media workhorse.

LinkedIn: It's all business. Personal relationships don't even hit the radar.

Twitter: Mostly business, but there is a level of personal interaction among business peers that seems to be highly appropriate and works well.

Facebook: Now we're moving into the realm of personal rather than business. Old friends from college, neighbors, etc, all show up on Facebook.

90% of my Twitter interaction is business related and 100% of my LinkedIn interaction is business. On Facebook about 70% is personal, but my Fan Page is 100% business related and I am more satisfied with my business engagements on Facebook, than Twitter.. On emails I am between 90-95% business.

The great thing about social connections is that the business conversations and connections you make turn into professional relationships and through these deeper trusting connections are created.

I use social networks for business [mainly]. Run business-related communities on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Groups, Ning, etc.. - in my case business-related discussions are evenly split across email and social networks.

I stopped being personal and focused on expanding my biz network. Some of my Facebook friends broadcast biz blogs there but most are just doing personal stuff. I try to do my biz stuff passively if I can. Most #fail by being self-promoting annoyances. I would say most people I see outside my network have no clue why they are on Twitter, etc.

Hope that helps!