When Abrams Research polled 200 social media leaders about the future of social media and they got some surprising answers:

Best social media tool for business:

• 40% of respondents picked Twitter
• 21.3% chose LinkedIn
• 18.8% said YouTube
• 15.3% said Facebook

However, when asked which tool they pay for the result was very different:

• Facebook came in first with 32.2%
• LinkedIn was not far behind with 27.7%
• Twitter only got 21.8% of the votes

Looking at the future it seems that going from cool to uncool is the kiss of death in social media and is to be avoided at all costs.

What is cool right now?  Status updates.  It was chosen as the social networking feature  most critical to users for everyday use. (Are you on Twitter?)

And the dark horse?  LinkedIn.  It came in second in both categories:  best for business and most likely to be paid for.

Now you know where to spend your social media time.

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