Social Networking at Work: Fear Not Facebook, MySpace?
Millions of people have a personal online profile; they share photos, news and gossip with friends, spend hours updating their details and adding new friends. Welcome to social networking and the world of Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.
What makes social networking on the Internet so popular is the power it gives individuals to create, maintain and expand any number of networks to include family, close friends and people who share a similar interest, profession or hobby.
The growing popularity of Facebook, for example, has encouraged corporate marketing teams to explore the opportunities to be had by having a corporate profile; using their employees contacts for sales and marketing, effectively creating a snowball effect as the corporate message is passed from one network to another. These sites give them a direct route to targeted groups of individuals with similar interests and, most importantly, it's free.
There is no doubt that Facebook and other social networking sites have potential for commercial use but to what extent should organizations or businesses allow social networking at work? What are the concerns? Should employees have access to Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites when they are supposed to be working?
The concerns
Social networking sites are the root of four problems.
Loss of productivity: According to a study by information security consultancy Global Secure Systems and the organizers of the Infosecurity Europe trade show, the use of such sites is costing U.K. business an estimated $12.5 billion per year in terms of reduced output. Another study showed that employees spend at least 30 minutes a day visiting these sites with some employees spending up to three hours of their working day taking care of their online profile.
Impact on network resources as bandwidth is consumed: In smaller organizations, unnecessary browsing, uploading to and downloading of files from social networking sites can eat up bandwidth thus affecting network resources.
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Will They Come?
Thank you for the great post!You have to remember that people should want to discuss your product or have discussions through your company. That means your product offering has to be engaging, while compelling at the same time.
Your virtual village (http://sparxoo.com/?p=285) has to mean something to your audience for it to be a success. Step outside of your shoes and think about your customers. Will they benefit from your social network? If the answer is yes, Ning.com is a great virtual village developer for not-so-tech-savvy entrepreneurs.
Thanks,
Ethan
Monitor for Productivity
The issue isn’t about visiting Facebook, YouTube or even ESPN a couple of minutes each day – these things become addictive and can lead to hours of abuse. According to a new report by Nielsen Online, most online videos in the U.S. are watched at work between 9am and 5pm during the work week. Even the online porn industry confirms that the most popular time spent on their sites is during work hours. And think about it – most companies block porn sites. This isn’t just a waste of employer paid time – it robs the organization of bandwidth, causes IT headaches due to downloaded malware and reduced storage capacity and opens up organizations to legal issues such as sexual harassment, illegal media downloads and potentially embarrassing public relations nightmares such as sexual predators and child porn arrests. According to an eye opening survey conducted by monitoring vendor SpectorSoft of its customers who use that company's Spector 360 PC and Internet monitoring software – 96% said the software confirmed their suspicions. 89% of the companies surveyed found more abuse than they expected, with 28% finding "far more" abuse. We've seen it. We've stopped it!We found that once we installed Spector 360 employees policed themselves - the product is a great deterrent to bad behavior and we have also seen reduced bandwidth, storage and even printer usage.
Whatver. All these companies
Whatver. All these companies worry about the most is profit. Even these social networking sites are for profit and not for the entertainment of the masses. Look how the advertisers have littered Youtube, MySpace, and other social networking sites. Screw your products, and I wonder how many close/skip your adds compared to the less gullible who fall for the trick.