Should we use social networking tools in our business?

Reader question: Should we use social networking tools in our businesses to improve internal communication and collaboration?

Jeffrey Mann, research vice president at Gartner, says:

The shortest answer is yes. Business executives are often put off by the thought of using social networking tools in a business environment because they are most commonly associated with consumer use. However, the drivers that encourage consumers to use these tools are really not so different from business needs when analysed more closely.

Seeing users "throw sheep" at each other (a popular way of demanding attention on Facebook), recommend obscure music, garner support for fashionable or frivolous causes, or publicise grainy video clips of drunken antics or cute kittens could lead managers to believe that what happens on these sites has no relevance to the serious, disciplined working world. In reality, there is more overlap between these two worlds than might initially be expected. While the objects dealt with will be very different, the kinds of interactions fostered by consumer social software sites are actually very close to the desired behaviour that collaboration managers should be encouraging.

At Gartner, we strongly believe that social software technologies will soon gain wide business acceptance. These social networking sites and consumer tools are solving problems in such areas as collaboration, information sharing, group formation, employee engagement, and information organisation in interesting new ways that are worth learning from.

Although consumer users typically deal with artifacts such as videos, music clips, recipes, travel tips, sport scores and fashion pictures, the way that they deal with these objects is fundamentally similar to how enterprise users deal with reports, transactions, emails, proposals and presentations. Many of the basic needs are strikingly similar, even if the objects and descriptions are widely divergent. While consumers want to keep up with what their friends are doing, business users want to keep up with their colleagues’ activities. Consumers want advice about whom to date or what clothes to buy, while business users want to tap into colleagues’ expertise on vendors and suppliers. Consumers look to involve their friends in political or social causes, while business users want to mobilise to take advantage of an opportunity or react to a crisis.

Expressed in a different context, all of these social behaviours are the kind of thing that organisations should be encouraging. It is squarely in the interest of businesses for their employees to have better contact with colleagues and partners and to seek new ways of sharing information and attain better insights.

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