Can anyone use social networks to drive traffic?

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You’re all aware of the rise in social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Businesses are using them more and more to reach out to customers. An interesting stat that highlights the emerging power of these platforms to reach customers is that some commercial websites are reporting Facebook and Twitter as the number 2 and 3 referrers of traffic behind Google.
That type of trend begs the question: Why aren't' all firms, B2B and B2C, using Facebook or any of the other social media platforms to drive customers to their websites? First, you need to think about whom is your typical customer and ask which social media platform they would frequent for information to help them do their job.
Facebook
Facebook has seen huge growth in adults lately. The growth in older adults would make you think that Facebook is a great place to interact with your customers. However, do you believe that your target market is frequenting Facebook for work? If the answer is no, then move on but continue to monitor its relevance for you audiences.
Twitter
A lot has been written about Twitter, a micro blogging site. Twitter also has seen huge growth rates, particularly in the workplace. In fact, in February the largest age group on Twitter was the age group 35-49 (42 percent of the site’s audience). Nielson ratings found that the majority of people visit Twitter.com while at work, with 62 percent of the unique audience accessing the site from work only versus 35 percent that accessed it from home only. Again, this is a pretty amazing trend. However, if you look at the top followed people on Twitter you see that Britney Spears is #3, Shaq is #8 and Whole Foods Market is #24. These facts may lead you to believe that Twitter is not a place that your target market is going for information about your product.
LinkedIn
At my work, I am currently discussing setting up a Harvard Business Publishing Group on LinkedIn. We feel that LinkedIn’s business focus lends itself well to interacting with our prospects and partners. In fact, according to the latest January data from comScore, the LinkedIn’s U.S. unique visitors shot up 22 percent to 7.7 million, up from 6.3 million in December. Total minutes spent on the site doubled in January to 96.8 million, from 47.6 million in December. These trends do make us feel comfortable that LinkedIn may be a good place to interact, and help, our customers.