In a recent survey of St. Cloud Area Chamber members, the two services that dominate social media by popularity and use are Facebook and LinkedIn. Chamber members responding to the survey showed a preference of Facebook for personal use and LinkedIn for business use. By percentage of those responding, St. Cloud Area Chamber members' use of LinkedIn for business lagged slightly behind 648 chamber members of other regional communities. Their use of Facebook lagged more significantly behind the same group as reported.

In an August 2009 national study by NFI Research, 77 percent of respondents reported using LinkedIn for business purposes compared to 31 percent using Facebook, 25 percent using blogs and 18 percent using Twitter. St. Cloud Area Chamber members echo those statistics, with 39 percent using LinkedIn, 26 percent Facebook, 9 percent blogs and 13 percent using Twitter.

A near majority -- 58 percent of St. Cloud Area Chamber members -- are slightly confident, to not at all confident their company has a social media plan. The aggregate of all chambers' members were even less confident, nearly matching the national survey of business leaders.

• Businesses that are not using technology and social media sources are out of step with today's productive workforce.
• There isn't a sufficient user base to say reliably if most strategies are "effective" yet.
• [Social media] can be very effective to get your name out there and allow people to become familiar with your company.

The survey was conducted by Prime Contact in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce as a benefit to membership. An affiliate of Flint Group, Prime Contact is a market research firm with representatives in St. Cloud, Duluth, Grand Forks and Fargo.