A Demos report (funded by Orange) published today 29 October argues that social networking sites could help companies beat the recession (report pdf).
I liked this extract from the report: “Consultancy firm McKinsey has studied the importance of social or employee networks for businesses. They found in their research that ‘the formal structures of companies… don’t explain how most of their real day-to-day work gets done’.
“They go on to argue that to capture that value, these network relationships need to be formalised in ways that do not interrupt the looseness from which their value emerges.” (Bryan, Matson and Weiss, ‘Harnessing the power of informal employee networks’)
Reminds me of a post I wrote back in July on ‘How to survive a recession social network style’ quoting the example of BMW’s comms strategy from the early 1990s recession.
Stuart: An employer might use software to monitor and limit social networking time, so employees don’t spend it to excess. What do you think? Detailed discussion –Ben
Benjamin: I think it helps if there is a policy in place up front so all employees know where they stand. Personally I think it’s about getting the balance right. Last place I worked banned the use of instant messaging for a while as I recall, even though it was useful for project managing teams across the globe. Maybe it’s about setting out reasonable boundaries which employees and employers can both benefit from. For example allowing use of social networking sites during lunch hour only. Or instant messaging when just for business purposes.
It’s also important for businesses to keep an eye on the social media space, as no matter how fine grained their regulations may be they need to externally monitor conversations which may damage their brand (as well as keep a note of positive customer praise!). Check out the HowSociable? free web 2.0 brand checker for example.