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CIOs Still Unsure Of Facebook And Twitter's Role In Business
By Jim Berkowitz
Expert Author
Article Date: 2010-01-18
Here are several excerpts from an article by Jon Brodkin, Senior Writer for Network World, Facebook, Twitter Becoming Business Tools, But CIOs Remain Wary. Check out the complete source article for much more on this topic:
Will 2010 be the year Facebook and Twitter take over the business world? The social networks are growing in popularity by the day, both for personal and business use, yet many IT and business executives remain wary of the risks posed by the online services and skeptical about potential benefits.
A number of Web-savvy CIOs are using Twitter to spread their views, engage with colleagues and discuss technology, yet a survey shows that more than half of CIOs in the United States do not allow employees to log onto social networking sites "for any reason" while they're at work. Another survey conducted in the United Kingdom found that nearly three-quarters of the top brands had no official presence on Twitter, despite the service's potential for reaching customers.
Business users are logging onto public social networking sites far more often than social networks sponsored by their employers, but attempts to block such activity simply will not work, says IDC analyst Caroline Dangson who researches enterprise collaboration and social technologies.
As workforces become more distributed, and even office workers spend time working at home, people will use personal devices for business use and it will be difficult for IT to make blanket proclamations banning tools as widely used as Facebook and Twitter.
"This concept of trying to control or block [social media usage], it is not going to work," Dangson says. "There's going to be a divide, with some companies that shun public social networks and are fearful of using them, and some who embrace it and take the risk."
An IDC survey of 4,710 U.S. workers in October found that 34% use consumer social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn for business purposes, and 9% use microblogging sites like Twitter for business purposes.
Yet many of their employers are trying to stop them from doing so.
A Robert Half Technology survey of 1,400 CIOs from U.S. companies with at least 100 employees found that 54% completely prohibit use of social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, while at work. Nineteen percent allow social networking sites for business purposes only, while another 16% allow "limited personal use." Just 10% permit use of social networking sites "for any type of personal use."
Clearly, use of social networks will continue to increase in 2010. Company executives need to accept this reality ? they don't have to take a hands-off, anything-goes approach, but they do need policies governing employee use and a strategy for corporate use, analysts say.
In the next year, CIOs will get more involved, and "we'll see companies writing policies and guidelines," partly to protect workers, Dangson says. Businesses will also increase use of Facebook and Twitter for CRM, she predicts, saying CRM is "the most compelling business case for public social media sites where customers frequently voice their opinions on matters of everyday life, including the brands in which they interact."
Forrester analyst Augie Ray, who studies social marketing, says companies like Best Buy and Comcast are have done a good job interacting with customers on social sites. This is necessary in part because consumers' attention has been distracted from traditional forms of advertising.
"They're embracing it because they have to," Ray says. "Brands that do get it, understand that they can engage with and have a two-way dialogue with consumers." Companies need a strategy that takes into account who their audience is and how they prefer to be reached, Ray says. Social media efforts can't be half-baked.
Starting a company Facebook page, putting a lot of effort into it up-front and then never updating it again is not effective marketing.
Businesses should also have a plan for how to use social media in times of crisis, because Facebook and Twitter are often the most direct ways of reaching customers. The moment a public relations crisis happens is not the time you want to be asking the question "how will we respond?" Ray says.
Companies looking to improve brand image via social marketing also need to be wary of the legitimate privacy concerns their customers may have. Marketers need to be transparent about what data they collect and how they are using it, Ray says.
In 2010, you're likely to hear the phrase "Facebook for the enterprise." Salesforce.com recently announced "Chatter," a social-networking application that is designed for internal business use but can also incorporate content from public social networking sites by taking advantage of the Facebook and Twitter APIs. Therefore, employees can receive in the same feed a mix of private content from their bosses and fellow employees, and public content from Facebook and Twitter that is related to their jobs.
Bruce Francis, vice president of corporate strategy for Salesforce, says he doesn't know anyone without a Facebook account. Eventually, he thinks employees will develop extensive corporate profiles as well, and relationships between the public and corporate profiles will develop.
Even though many CIOs seem wary of social networking in the workplace, Francis is confident that IT executives will ultimately embrace the trend.
"I think that every CIO is looking at what's been going on with the rise of social networks like Twitter and Facebook," Francis says. "Companies are wondering, ‘how can I capture that energy, that relevance, that better way of managing all the information that's important to me, how can I capture that for my company?'"
Just as in Facebook, Chatter allows people and applications to send users news in real time, but the security model will allow IT to determine what types of information employees can see. Salesforce believes this granular privacy control will help assuage concerns businesses have about the security of public social networking sites.
"What companies are really asking for is a better way to collaborate," Francis says.
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About the Author:
Jim Berkowitz is a seasoned executive with more than 30 years of professional services and project management experience related to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Financial Management (Accounting & ERP) software solutions for small, mid-sized and Fortune 500 companies. As a Sales Force Automation and CRM Consultant, Jim has assisted more then 100 companies with the design and implementation of custom CRM solutions.
Mr. Berkowitz is the founder and President of CRM Mastery, Inc.; a company dedicated to serving small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) by offering affordable tools and guidance to help them plan for and succeed with their CRM initiatives.
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