Business potential of social networking largely untapped
1 min read
While social networking web sites remain almost entirely the preserve of socialising and entertainment, they will become increasingly important to the competitiveness of large manufacturers in the future.
That’s the key finding of a recent survey by analyst Gartner, whose research director Nick Ingelbrecht says: “Social networking software holds enormous potential for improving the management of large enterprises.”
But not any time soon: “Work in this area is still immature and, in the meantime, enterprises should be aware of what’s happening … and implement appropriate usage policies for employees’ use of services such as Facebook and MySpace,” he says.
The survey, which was conducted six months ago around the world, found that, of some 4,000 PC and mobile phone users, 38% connected to social networking sites via PC, less than 1% by mobile phone only, and 8% via both.
Interestingly, as part of Gartner’s research, respondents were also asked to rate social networking against 14 other Internet applications. “Despite the hype, Internet users generally did not place a high level of importance on social sites, compared with other mainstream applications, such as email and search,” says Ingelbrecht.
