I saw an interesting article on ‘social networking’ in the 6-9 June edition of ‘Engineering and Technology’ magazine. The article appeared in the ‘IT Internet’ coloum titled “social networking: the business case” . The article covers different aspects on social networking. It is a useful article for marketing executives and corporate IT managers. Business managers in customer relations and IT fields can gain lot of gyan from this article.

The initial page of the article is awesome. There is an interesting illustration, which tells how social networking is utilised by different peoples. It says how a developer, CEO/HR manager, marketing executive and a student utilises for their work. The punch line in the page is “ Spread the word: social networks do have the potential to become business enablers if you get to know them well enough.”

I have gone through the article. The use of social networking in different area creates different thoughts and worries. The author discusses those thought and worries in the article. As we know most of the IT companies might have banned/restricted access to social networking sites. What may be the reason. An IT manger will tell that ‘We are affried that it may affect our productivity, use of bandwidth and data lose etc…” It is correct .

One of my friend who is a network admin in a company told the same. One of the PL found that most of his project mates are spending much time in reading blogs and orkutting. What he did is restricted the access, like you can visit those sites during lunch time. But the real head ache started after that only. People who became addicted to social networking may try to access those sites through ‘external proxies’, which became a head ache for the network admin. We know that some utilities like Twitter is helpful for attackers to spread virus and malwares. You may have also some stories like this to tell.

Ya the author also shares his thoughts on the same. He quotes ‘Graham Cluley’ from Sophos : ‘Denying staff access to social networking sites will only drive them to find a way round the ban’
The crucial truth .

An important pint which the author mentioned in his article is - by 2013 50% of Internet users in UK will be visiting social networking sites al-least once in a month and developers will be spending minimum 30 minutes in per day in these sites. He pinpoints the top concerns about the social networking like a) loss of productivity b) data leakage c) malwares and phishing etc…

Till now we were talking about the adverse effects of social networking. Does it have any creative use in business? Surely. As I mentioned the picture in the article depending upon your functional area you can use it . For example an HR executive can search for potential candidates from social networking sites like linkedin or XING. It happens now also. So many international IT firms are experimenting with this methodology. Author of this article also shares thoughts related to this also.

Being a social networking site consumer I came across so many facts. In global village caste religion ,sexual orientation and fundamentalism doesn’t looses its role. You can find caste religion and sexuality oriented communities in your favourite social networking sites. Is it for good or bad ? who knows !!!

What gyan an IT manager or marketing professional can gain from this article is interesting . 1) How to set-up a corporate social network usage policy for your organisation. The author gives six guidelines. It can be called as golden guidelines for the same. Instead of ban to social networking sites employer can give acces to those sites with limited functionalities. Employee may be restricted to use some features in a social networking site like. So it can be called as social networking in workplace without loosing the productivity and no networking headache.

2) To a marketing manager of HR executive - How can enhance business with social networking sites, or how can I find potential candidates for my company is possible. I think people are also experimenting with this. Personally I having some experience with this. 3) Social networking sites are good for freelancers to find out clients .

Web2.0 + social networking + collective intelligence = better marketing . It will be a future equation .

Bibliographic Details Social networking: the business case - [IT internet] Wilson, J.; Engineering & Technology Volume 4, Issue 10, 6-19 June 6 2009 Page(s):54 - 56

Disclimer - The post includes my own comments on the article mentioned above and social networking.

Migrated from my old blog jaganadhg.freeflux.net