I sent this question out to 30 or so fans of mine in Stumble Upon. The results were mixed and truly speak of where I believe social media currently is in business applications. Here are the results:

1. Most people that I surveyed are using social media sites merely for personal reasons. They are using them to stay connected with friends, to find people of similar interests, and to find sites of interest to them. Some are now going to their friends' sites before they Google the subject. Notice these quotes:

“I use SU mostly just to waste a little time and see what other cool links are out there.”

“Um no I don't really use it for business other than financial stumbles. I don't really know how one would do use StumbleUpon for business.”

“Mainly I'm testing to see how well I can train this system to ‘find' most relevant sites for me.”

2. A few are starting to ask how their “fun” experience on social sites could translate into business.

“i want to use su for business, but still in the beginning stages of figuring out how su works..haven't tried other social sites, like linked in, twitter, etc, if they would be effect for the time put in, might try it out..i have so little time to do anything, have to squeeze it all in...”

3. A minority have discovered ways of using social media in their businesses. Look at this quote from an artist in Charlotte, North Carolina:

“Flickr I use to test some of my work before I upload to my website, probably the closest thing to a blog I have. I try to market myself a little but people don't like SPAM, so I just make sure if someone is looking for me or my artwork, that they can find me.”

“hey jeff - I use it for both personal and business, I suppose. :) Yes - i am somewhat active in other communities too.”

Perhaps the take away from this little unscientific survey is some people are finding social media applications for business and some are not. Maybe discovering that social media isn't for a particular business is just as important as discovering which social media applications are…

What about you? Using social media? For personal applications? Business?