Cisco recently commissioned and published a report to study how organizations use consumer social networking tools.  The results were both promising and shocking. The report reveals the both the value of adopting these tools in the enterprise and also the risks that need to be addressed through stronger governance and IT involvement.

Here are a few of the study highlights.

The first set of findings point to the increased use and integration of consumer-based social networking tools in the enterprise.

“75 percent identified social networks as the consumer-based social media tools they primarily use, while roughly 50 percent of the group also identified extensive use of microblogging.”

This part is old news. Organizations are racing to adopt social networking and microblogging tools to help drive the business and it seems there is a new article about it every day.

“Social networking tools are spreading into core areas of the value chain, including the marketing and communications, human relations, and customer service departments.”

Organizations are now moving beyond social networking silos. They’ve already proven there is value in tapping these tools as stand alone solutions and now they are looking for ways to integrate social into their enterprise processes and systems.  This is the next big wave.

While usage and integration is skyrocketing, companies have been lax in regards to governance and involving IT in their decisions.  Ultimately, this creates a great deal of risk and exposure.

“Only 1 in 7 companies noted a formal process associated with adopting consumer-based social networking tools for business purposes, indicating that the potential risks associated with these tools in the enterprise are either overlooked or not well understood.”

This is likely a result of the unbridled growth of these tools and all the buzz associated with them.  But like any good business decision, companies need to step back, understand what they are trying to achieve, evaluate the risks and put the tools in place to manage the program. I will say that the companies we’ve been working with in regulated industries are taking a very programmatic approach to adopting social.  While other industries may not face the same challenges they can learn a lot from these institutions.

“Only 1 in 5 participants identified any policies in place concerning the use of consumer-based social networking technologies in the enterprise.”

This point has come up before.  If you fall in this camp be sure to check out this list of sample social media policies.  As of today there are over 115 examples.  In addition, here is a great list of government related social media policies.

Be careful in thinking that a policy alone is all you need.  Deloitte found in an Ethics & Workplace Survey that 49% of employees say a company policy won’t change how they behave online. As a result you should evaluate tools to help you monitor activity to protect your employees and your brand.

“Due to the unstructured nature of social networking, companies continue to struggle with policy creation and adoption, as copying an established governance process from other, more structured areas (for example, information technology) often doesn’t work for social networking.”

Until recently companies have had two choices when it comes to social networking sites. Open the floodgates or completely block access. Since these are consumers sites there are no built in management controls for the enterprise. This is one reason why social middleware has become such a hot topic.  With it companies can apply structure, define policies, control access and protect their brand on these open, consumer sites.

“Businesses also find difficulty in striking the right balance between the social and personal nature of these tools while maintaining some degree of corporate oversight.”

We hear this a lot from our clients as well.  On Twitter users can easily create multiple personas.  However, on Facebook and LinkedIn you are only allowed a single account under their terms of use.  As a result there is no way to separate your personal activity from the professional on these sites.

Again the need for social middleware becomes clear.  Adopting this middle layer creates the ability for employees to choose whether or not content is personal vs. professional.  As a result companies can implement policies that give employees the ability to choose what category the content falls under and as a result how that content will be monitored, retained and managed by the enterprise.

“Only 1 in 10 respondents noted direct IT involvement in externally facing social networking initiatives. Although the IT department is typically not involved as a primary decision maker, respondents did recognize the need for these tools to scale and properly integrate with existing business processes to reap maximum benefits.”

There are two items of note here. First for companies to realize the full benefits of these tools they will need direct integration to their people, processes and systems. Building loose connections in a one-off manner to each of these sites it not the answer.  IT will want a single point of integration to marry enterprise processes with the top sites of today and those that will be the next Facebook tomorrow.

The second reason it is critical to involve IT is that these sites have a very real impact on the infrastructure of the enterprise. A report from Blue Coat noted “a company based in the US was having problems connecting with its South Africa office” due to the fact that “the bandwidth on its WAN link was completely consumed and it found that 75% of that traffic was Facebook.”

Of course blocking access is not the answer. In that same report they highlighted a customer that “blocked Facebook and within 48 hours they had to unblock it.  Marketing and HR had complained that it was critical to them getting the job done.”

There has to be a happy medium.  Companies will be forced to open up access to these tools but at the same time they need to manage that access.  One solution to the bandwidth problem is to govern access to those parts of the site that consume the most, like videos and photos.  This way you meet the needs of the business by giving access while not crippling the rest of the network.

In addition to the analysis in the report there are some great perspectives by industry leaders on why adopting these social tools will ultimately be a driver of success and competitive advantage.

“Companies who will succeed in embracing the tremendous power of social networking will be those who design a collaborative IT architecture capable of supporting the use of these technologies and mitigating the risks they pose.”
Nick Earle, senior vice president, Cisco Services

“Businesses need to embrace social media not only to remain competitive, but also to continue to attract top talent. The next generation of leaders will be exceptionally savvy with these tools, so 3M is using social media externally to help us with recruiting. Several of the graduates we hired this year specifically told us that they hadn’t considered 3M before they saw our employer profile on social media.”
Hugh Murphy, e-Channels, 3M U.K. and Ireland

Thanks Cisco for a great report on a hot topic. I’m looking forward to part 2.