11 Jul 2008
Businesses should make more use of social networking web sites to communicate with their employees and customers, a study by Gartner has found.
A survey of 2,000 users across the world found that 80 per cent of members of web sites such as Facebook or Bebo used the sites for entertainment, and were not using the technology for business-related discussions.
Nikos Drakos, a research director at Gartner, told Computing that the web sites provided an opportunity for businesses to promote their innovation to both staff members and potential customers.
"With web sites such as Facebook and other Web 2.0 technologies, businesses have an open opportunity to promote themselves among their employees, and more importantly, to customers.
"For example, if there was a Facebook group about a certain company or a product, they could intervene against negative postings, or use the positive postings as a marketing asset," Drakos said.
The Gartner research said that companies are beginning to look at social networking sites as a way of encouraging innovation, but at present it remains largely untapped because of skepticism over its actual worth.
Drakos said: "Many companies have a big idea to embrace the Web 2.0 environment and use it to talk more to staff and customers, but it is yet to really become mainstream. There is a degree of skepticism due to a lack of good examples of how it helps to boost profits and productivity."
However, the report said that the use of the web sites will become increasingly important to the competitiveness of large enterprises in the future.
Drakos said: "It will eventually be seen as essential to all large firms, encouraging more open and transparent communications with staff around the world, and helping to improve relations with existing and potential customers."
Gartner analysts will further discuss the evolution of social software and how to use it for competitive advantage at Gartner’s Portals, Content & Collaboration Summit, taking place on 10-11 September 2008 in London.
I read about this report with interest. That consumers are getting more and more used to social networking and other social tools is well known by those of us who work in the industry. The reasons are simple - they actually offer a new and different way of communicating. You can do new things in new ways and so people are adopting them.
One of our recent online research communities at FreshNetworks suggested that if businesses don't lead the adoption of social networking then the users will leave them behind. They'll lose control and no longer be part of the debate.
I wrote more about this for those that might be interested:
http://blog.freshnetworks.com
Posted by: Matt Rhodes 12 Jul 2008
Have your say on this article
Newsletters
Latest stories from Strategy
Latest videos
You may also like
Strategy jobs
Technology Patent Wars
Staff are increasingly using their personal devices for work. Productivity may increase as a result, but the trend brings with it security risks
Case studies from large organisations across all sectors
... And rich media, and flexible working, and peaks in traffic ...
Upcoming Events
Join us for this Computing web seminar, in which the Head of BI at the Co-operative Group Nick Colebourn will be explaining just how he reigned in the Group’s sprawling database estate and how significant savings were realised and data quality improved as a result.
Date: 31 May 2012
Time: 11:00 AM
Live June 13th 11:00am: Register now. During this web seminar we will be looking at the sorts of incidents that can bring data centres grinding to a halt and what can be done about them.
Date: 13 Jun 2012
Time: 11:00 am
Receive the latest jobs direct to your inbox
Are you being paid what you are worth?
