Social Networking for Business

Social networking platforms such as Facebook has captured such a large interest and momentum that it continues to grow in Australia and globally . The growth of this site has been phenomenal with a recent report by insiderfacebook claiming that for a 60 day period in early 2009 the number of US facebook users over the age of 35 has nearly doubled! It is also interesting to note that according to statistics from comScore

•Twitter had 800,000 Australian visitors in June 09, up from 13,000 in June 08 (607% increase)

•3 out of 4 Australians Visited a Social Networking Site in June

•Nearly 9 million Australians visited social networking sites in June

•Facebook led as the most visited (now more than 6 million)

•Windows Live Profile had nearly 2 million (though you don’t hear about this stat too often!)

It is quite evident that social networking is a tool that can be utilised by business. I recently heard a presentation by Charis Palmer from the Online Banking Review. This presentation went into discussion about the use of social networking sites by employees within an organisation and the possible threats that this poses including issues of identity fraud. I know that this is a very real reality and that criminals utilise social networking sites to obtain further information on potential victims. There was also a very important and relevant discussion around the use of policy regarding social networking site use. I believe as did Charis Palmer that there needs to be a greater development of policies in a way that employees are better educated and prepared when posting information. There was also further discussion regarding best practices for how these policies should be developed and presented to employees.

The main focus of the presentation by Charis Palmer was focusing on internal employees using external social networking platforms and the potential issues that may arise. There also needs to be some thought given to the use of web 2.0 applications internally within an organisation. Such platforms as Wikipedia that are open source have the potential to provide amazing benefits.

There is however, a great uptake of Web 2.0 not only by business but also by government. Most politicians are utilising Web 2.0 as another method for communicating with the voting public. Also a blog post by Charis Palmer discusses Australian Banks and that they are utilising Web 2.0 applicaitons.

I encourage you to visit Charis Palmer’s site and would be interested to hear your thoughts on the use of Web 2.0 within business and where you have seen a successful implemenation of it.

Regards

Brendan