This month I am on the road doing training with small businesses on how to build websites and use social media. So I was delighted when a friend in Lake of the Woods sent a recent article from the Wall Street Journal on the topic (Small Firms Say LinkedIn Works, Twitter Doesn’t ).

It was interesting to hear some stories of success…

Three years ago, the 47-year-old Mr. DeMann began using Facebook and Twitter to market his service and, in 2011, he designated one of his 78 workers to spend 20 hours a week on social-media efforts, generating health discussions on Facebook and highlighting health tips and articles on Twitter.

In 2012, Mr. DeMann says, Facebook was the sixth-largest driver of online traffic to his website. Online scrapbook Pinterest, which the firm started using just four months ago, was 59th. Twitter ranked 117th. “On Twitter, you can’t engage in a meaningful way,” he says.

…

Josh Weiss, 27, of Woodbury, N.Y., says he spends 10 hours a week using social media to lure customers to his 10-employee business, Bluegala.com, which sells evening dresses and prom gowns. He tweets on behalf of the company, and has done so since 2009.

But he never got the traction he wanted because “on Twitter, people have short attention spans,” he says. “They want quick news bits and move on. They’re not on Twitter to shop.”

Mr. Weiss says he now uses Twitter as a surveillance tool, to keep tabs on fashion trends and competitors. He says he noticed complaints from rivals’ customers about shipping charges, so he began advertising free shipping on his site to give his firm an edge.

…

Anthony Saladino, 30, founder of KitchenCabinetKings.com, an online cabinet distributor in New York, says one drawback to Twitter is that it can’t support images as effectively as other outlets like Pinterest and Facebook, which makes it a hard sell for firms that rely on visuals to attract customers. His company markets itself with high-quality images of its renovated kitchens and bathrooms.

Between 12,000 and 14,000 unique visitors arrive on the company’s site each month through Pinterest, he says, while roughly 1,000 come through Facebook and fewer than 100 arrive via Twitter. “Images are more powerful than word-of-mouth,” says Mr. Saladino. “Clients want to see the finished product.”

It is worth noting that businesses say that they have had greater success with LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube than Twitter. I think some of it comes down to goals and strategy. I think comments from the business in the first example hits a point – when he says that you can’t engage people on Twitter. That may be true – but as the final example demonstrates, there may be other uses of Twitter – tracking trends, making some networking connections and I’d say mobilizing clients quickly and easily without supporting a community. One example we ran across in class was a motel owner who wanted to offer last minute specials to fill rooms, but didn’t want to announce last minute specials to a wider audience upon fear that it might train folks to not book in advance. While everyone might be able to see a Tweet – the shelf life is such that on a practical basis the news will expire quickly.