Choosing which networks to be on
Network choice depends on the audience a writer wants to reach and the work the presence should support. Platform roles, professional expectations and usage figures can inform that choice when their scope and date are kept clear.
Audience and purpose
Writers should choose platforms where their clients or prospective employers are, define their audience and goals, start slowly and participate consistently. Focusing on one or two platforms that fit those objectives can avoid missing interactions through trying to be everywhere.
A science communicator's 2021 comparison distinguished Facebook's family, friends and classmates from LinkedIn's professional and business contacts, including current and former colleagues. He regarded Twitter as more oriented toward ideas, topics and changing conversations than toward social connections, while Facebook suited content less dependent on timing. In his view, Twitter's emphasis on immediacy over accuracy helped misinformation and disinformation spread faster there. The limits he reported in 2021 were 1,300 characters for LinkedIn status posts and 280 for Twitter; he had not encountered Facebook's limit.
In 2015, conference presenters recommended LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube for medical writers and suggested choosing two according to client and employer presence. In 2018, two freelance practitioners regarded LinkedIn and Twitter as the most effective platforms for freelancers. Preferences differed: one 2015 freelancer ranked LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook in that order, while another gave Twitter much less time than LinkedIn but still valued its learning and connections.
Professional networking and client expectations
LinkedIn can function as an online résumé and business card while allowing conversations, advice and collaboration after an in-person meeting, including across countries. A 2012 practitioner described a completed profile as a showcase of experience and achievements and noted increasing expectations from employers and business partners for a professional online presence.
In 2018, one freelancer used LinkedIn because clients expected freelancers to be there and searched it for help; she also used it to learn, network and research prospects. Another described it as a showroom for experience, education and capabilities, while using Twitter to broaden an international scientific and medical-writing network.
In 2015, one practitioner reported that clients had found her through LinkedIn, and another had attracted clients through Twitter. A third preferred LinkedIn's business focus and ability to keep track of contacts changing companies, while treating Facebook primarily as a personal space. A freelancer writing in 2021 similarly regarded LinkedIn as a worldwide networking space for prospects, peers and clients and as likely to appear prominently when someone searched for a person online.
LinkedIn may have limited reach for some academic audiences: one freelance writer described professors and researchers with no profile or with little activity. The presence of a profile therefore need not mean that a prospective contact engages there.
A 2012 comparison identified LinkedIn as the largest business network and noted regional followings for Xing in Germany and Plaxo in America.
Medical-communication usage in 2011
The 2011 AMWA salary survey reported LinkedIn use by 80% of members, Facebook by 65% and Twitter by 14%. A separate survey of 140 medical-communications managers and non-managers asked which platform they used most often for business activities and relationships, a different measure from platform use.
| Platform | Managers using it most often for business | Non-managers using it most often for business |
|---|---|---|
| 37% | 38% | |
| 15% | 10% | |
| 13% | 12% | |
| SharePoint | 9% | 7% |
In that smaller survey, 24% of managers and 28% of non-managers reported never using LinkedIn. The AMWA survey also found that non-print content, including discs, podcasts, social media, video and web material, represented an average 16% of respondents' paid work.
Historical reach and platform comparisons
In 2009, a Nielsen Online report put the share of the global online community visiting social networks and blogs at 67% and described these activities as more popular than email. Twitter's user numbers had grown by 33% in one month, and its free service then limited updates to 140 characters. During 2008, the largest growth in member-community website visitors was among 35–49-year-olds, an increase of more than 11.3 million visitors.
A 2014 conference account reported that 93% of marketers used social networks for business and nearly 5,000 US health organisations had social-media accounts. The account distribution was Facebook 26%, Foursquare 23%, Twitter 20%, YouTube 14%, LinkedIn 13% and blogs 4%. Presenters identified Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, YouTube and Instagram as the six most-used networks among individuals, businesses and marketers; they described Twitter, Facebook and Google+ as the most widely used for business and marketing.
The same 2014 account gave Twitter more than 645 million users and described it as a place to find ideas, opportunities, information and services. LinkedIn had 300 million users, including 93 million in the United States and 24 million in India, was adding one member every two seconds, and had 2.1 million groups. Average use was 17 minutes per month and 41% of visits were mobile. Facebook's reported June 2013 audience was 1.19 billion active users, 80% outside the United States and Canada.
Presenters in 2014 described Google+, launched in 2011, as second to Facebook in size, growing 33% annually and used by 70% of brands. They associated it with search visibility and video-based marketing. Their comparison described 12 years of video being uploaded daily to YouTube and more than 60 million photos daily to Instagram, with YouTube supporting promotion, education and entertainment and Instagram visual brand storytelling.
In 2015, a practitioner described YouTube as the second-largest search engine after Google, with more than four billion viewing hours monthly, and suggested that seeing a communicator's face could build trust.
Facebook had about 2.8 billion monthly active users in the fourth quarter of 2020. A 2021 comparison listed these marketing platforms without ranking them.
- YouTube
- Facebook Messenger
- Weixin/WeChat
- Tumblr
- Qzone
- TikTok
- Sina Weibo
- Baidu Tieba
- Viber
- Snapchat
- Line
- Telegram
- Medium
A freelance writer in 2021 regarded LinkedIn as the most effective platform for business-to-business lead generation.