Facebook, Google+ or Twitter – which is best for success?

Whether you run a business or a blog, you’ll most likely spend most of your time and effort doing what is best for your business in the long run – and that probably mean not spending time doing something that does not give you a proper return on investment, even though the investment is “only” your time.

But why would businesses / blog owners even spend time on social networks such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc.? Well, I think some of the primary reasons are:

• Marketing and branding.
• Stay in touch with your customers / members / readers, there’s more two-way communication that way.
• Keep up-to-date with what the world is saying about you, your business/blog, by actively monitoring the social networks.

So let’s say you decide to start a Facebook Page in order to do some marketing for your business or blog, that’s good and all, but it’s going to take a while before you’ll be getting anything out of, since thousands of people are not just going to become fan of your Facebook Page from day 1, unless of course you decide to buy Facebook fans, which is entirely possible these days. Actually you can do the same with Twitter, I don’t know if there are similar services for Google+ yet, but it’s probably just a matter of time.

While buying fans for your Facebook / Twitter might be frowned upon by some people, I’m sure it can be of assistance for others. While the fans / followers might not be the most targeted fans one can get, you might still get lucky and find a few good customers in between. Or, if everything else fails, you’ll at least have the “social proof” to show that your Facebook Page or Twitter account is actively followed by many people, making new fans / followers more inclined to “like” themselves, because so many other people can’t be wrong.

So back to the topic – which social network is best for success? I gotta admit, I haven’t got a clue, because it depends entirely on you and your business / blog. For example, where are your customers / readers most likely to hang out? Where are you able to interact with them the best way possible?

For example, lots of people have a Facebook account – and in their own, full name. On Twitter, everybody can signup for an anonymous account, but on the plus side, you know that all communication will be maximum 140 characters, so it will be easier and faster for you to interact with your followers, compared to Facebook or Google+ where you can easily see people write short stories that they expect you to read and reply to.

On the down side, Twitter doesn’t make it easy for you to promote yourself quite as well as Facebook and Google+ does, especially on Facebook where you can create sub-pages inside your Page, you can add graphics, videos etc.

Basically, you’ll just have to figure out where your customers / readers are more inclined to hangout and what kind of communication you prefer to have with them.

Or perhaps you want to be present on all three major social networks: Facebook, Google+ and Twitter…