How important is Twitter to Tampa area consumers? Yesterday, for instance, the social media platform was mentioned in at least ten articles published by the Tampa Bay Times yesterday.  Almost every local TV newscast included references to the site as well.

Twitter's outsized presence in the news, however, is enormously disproportional to the importance of the micro-blogging app in the life of Tampa's consumers.

According to Nielsen, only about 15% of adults in Tampa Bay use Twitter during the course of a month. This is minuscule compared to other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Twitter offers 20 different options that Tampa Bay small business owners can utilize to market their goods and services to local consumers.  The platform's minimal reach, however, can hamper the success of any advertising campaign.

Tampa Bay retailers spend a considerable amount of time and money marketing their small businesses on social media.  Is this effort paying off?

Each month, according to Nielsen, 1.6 million Tampa Bay adults use Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. This equates to 78% of consumers.  This reach is rather anemic compared to Tampa radio and TV, which attracts considerably more users in a single week than these social media platforms do over 30 days.

Among local millennials, the monthly reach of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is eclipsed by the weekly reach of Tampa radio.

The number of consumers reached by an advertising campaign, according to Nielsen, is the media consideration that has the most significant effect on increasing sales. 

The first radio station in Tampa went on-the-air in 1922.  Eighty-two years later, Facebook inaugurated the social media era.  Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit, and hundreds of other sites quickly followed.

As social media matured from a novelty to part of consumers' daily rituals, some Tampa Bay business owners began to experiment with advertising.

By every key advertising metric, though, Tampa radio remains the best choice for a small business to market their goods and services. Here's why.