It seems that social networking sites are still the domain of consumers who are motivated by personal needs and a desire for entertainment, although businesses need to start paying attention.
Gartner’s report, Consumer social networks: a fact-based reality check shows that that Australians mainly access social networking sites for personal use and widespread adoption of social networking tools in the business is inevitable.
As reported in the AustralianIT, Business yet to scratch social networking surface:
“Social networking software holds enormous potential for improving the management of large enterprises,” Gartner research director and report author Nick Ingelbrecht says.
“However, work in this area is still immature, and in the meantime enterprises should be aware of what is happening in consumer social networking,” he says.
Ingelbrecht says Australians spend about 1.4 hours a week accessing social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. “One of the problems with social networking is that it is a consumer phenomenon that has spread into the enterprise,” he says.
“It is only now that people are beginning to realise policies governing its use need to be considered.” Ingelbrecht says social networking in the enterprise is a double-edged sword.
It can be disruptive to business, especially when people spend work hours accessing Facebook, but there are many social networking software tools that can be used to enhance business productivity, including collaboration tools, and even using Facebook to validate a hiring decision.
“The feedback we are getting from CIOs and IT managers is that you don’t want to ban these sites, but you need to set business policies to manage them.”
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