Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook: these well-known social networks have the potential to become useful business enablers if approached the right way.

But while the term ‘social network’ is one of the hottest buzzwords right now, it has been an essential part of IT since the early days. Back in the ‘80s developers and IT/IS people organised IT communities and user groups that would meet in person. When modems became generally available, IT professionals were active in Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and later on internet newsgroups which were probably the grandfathers of today’s social media phenomenon on the internet.

“Social media is especially useful for IT organisations for a couple of reasons: first, technology professionals are very passionate about their technology choices. They are also very proud of their expertise and they get personal satisfaction from sharing this expertise and being recognised for the expertise,” highlights Gerado Dada, senior director of product marketing at Vignette.

“But more importantly, because of the nature of IT problems, the practical, unbiased, real-world information from other industry professionals is much more valuable than the corporate ‘official’ technical documentation. This is why social media is not only been relevant in the IT world, it has been an essential part of it for many years.”

Specialists in this area are seeing lots of professionals, IT and otherwise, using LinkedIn to connect with peers and ask questions, share expertise etc. This is classic ‘community of practice’ network building and knowledge sharing.

“In the past, people have done this via forums, email lists, face-to-face meetings, etc. LinkedIn groups both lower the technical barriers to setting up such a discussion group, and make it easier to invite people from your network to participate in it,” explains IT specialist Dr Graham Oakes.

Interestingly, there seems to be an overwhelming and widespread dismissal of social applications as a phenomenon that can – with the odd exception – drive business productivity. But this is changing more and more as wily organisations move away from the ‘company-wide ban’ concept to instead take advantage of social networks to collaborate with customers and providers, gaining market presence and branding in the process.

Professionals and organisations alike are finding many different ways to use these networks to their advantage, as Ben Chai, chief editor of securityvibes.com/uk highlights.

“Linked-in tends to be used more as a networking tool to find job opportunities, to find out about potential employees and to research people you are potentially going to do business with. Facebook can also be used in a similar way but also has many other features that make it more sociable for professionals who wish to network with people they’ve worked with but have also turned into friends. In addition corporations are becoming more attuned as to how they can use social network sites for marketing advantage.
 
“From an IT and IS perspective – social networks have been excellent for producing video and how-to tutorials (e.g. on YouTube) which has vastly reduced helpdesk calls, networking with other like-minded professionals and obtaining advice and insights from their peer group. Without such tools it may have taken them hours even months of research to find out how to resolve a little known problem,” he explains.

“I see Twitter being used in two ways,” adds Dr Oakes. “People initiating discussions or asking questions, or people are using it to share stream-of-consciousness thinking with their peers on a team.

“Its very interesting. Close-knit teams work a lot through informal communication – you overhear two people discussing a problem and chime in with a suggestion.  Distributed teams lack this ‘overheard communication’ channel, which is a very rich part of many high performance teams.  Channels like conference calls, videoconferencing, email, and even instant messaging, etc are all much more formal.  Twitter can reproduce some of the overheard conversations and hence help such teams work together,” he explains.

But hot on the heels of these great ideas is the worrying threat of security issues and lower productivity.

“Social networking sites are becoming plagued with security threats such as viruses and spam, and their massive popularity is having a real impact on employee productivity and the bottom line,” says José María Gómez Hidalgo, R&D director, Optenet.

Productivity is still one of the main concerns when it comes to sites like Facebook and Twitter. For those personnel that are addicted to checking and updating their profiles, this equates to an awful lot of time spent “cyberloafing” during work hours - and in business, where time really is money, this just isn't acceptable behaviour.

However, loss of productivity is often overplayed – if people are going to waste time they’re going to find a way to do it: the staff canteen, browsing the web, chatting during an extended coffee break etc.
 
"But there is also an increased realisation that there are more deliberate and malicious risks associated with social networking,” highlights Graham Cluley, Sophos’s senior technology consultant. “Frequent use of these sites makes users a prime target for cybercriminals intent on stealing identities, spreading malware or bombarding users with spam.
 
"Just this year, we've seen four of the most popular sites - Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter - hit by spam and malware attacks, all designed to compromise PCs or steal sensitive data. Sophos research confirms that one third of respondents have been spammed on social networking sites, while almost one quarter (21 per cent) have been targeted by phishing or malware attacks. As cybercrooks continue to exploit these sites for nefarious purposes, both innocent users and companies are finding themselves in the firing line."

Security is an important factor for IT and IS departments to consider, however the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Social networks can become business enablers to the benefit of IT in a number of ways aside from a simple mechanism for very direct feedback delivered in a human rather than ‘corporate’ voice.

“Social applications can support and drive business productivity,” states Andrew Yates, ceo, Artesian Solutions. “Think about the way people work with information that they discover in the work place – for example reading a piece of news that may provide some competitive insight. The first thing we naturally do is share it with our colleagues usually on the email – why not take the concept of a social application and embed this into a business process? Think about the water cooler conversations that are going on right now on Instant Messenger or the iPhone. Integrating the concept of being able to make social gestures (such as sharing and discussing news and information) directly into business is a fundamental design construct of what we are doing at Artesian.”

Another enabler is that these applications can become highly useful when it comes to recruitment.

“They can be a powerful hiring tool, as they allow you to find relevant people for the job and at the same time you can start to assess their skills by what they write,” says Mickael Remond, ceo of ProcessOne.

Taking things a step further it is possible to bring on board bespoke social network tools or even build one internally. For example, Innovis Social Network is a private social network website for trading partners to update and access contact information and company profiles.

“Inovis has realised that social media sites are not just for networks of family and friends but also fantastic business tools that allow professionals across the globe to communicate with speed and ease. The business benefits can include valuable visibility of supplier personnel changes, regular to industry discussions, and perhaps most importantly improved communication between suppliers and retail partners,” says Erik Huddleston, Innovis cto.
 
The benefits are clear, but now is the time for organisations and departments to consider how best to engage with social networks in order to make the most of the opportunities.

It is early days, and so a time to experiment, as Dr Oakes highlights.

“It generally takes a while for appropriate ‘etiquette’ to evolve on these systems – people need to adjust to the different communication styles each site affords, the differences between different groups on the sites, etc.  So you need to start by experimenting.  Many people within the organisation are probably already doing this, so learn from their experience.
 
“As you gain familiarity with a specific system, then you need to start to think about how to adopt it more formally within the organisation.  This is where you start to think about setting up appropriate measures for security, data protection and disposal, usage policies, etc, and may lead to quite different solutions to those initially experimented with.  However, trying to formalise before you’ve really understand the issues via experimentation often leads to ‘locking in’ inappropriate modes of working,” he continues.
 
“Many IT organisations struggle with that first step – experimentation.  They get tangled up in defining policies etc too early, which stifles innovation.  Of course you need to manage concerns like privacy and security, but perhaps you also need to create spaces where it’s safe to experiment?”

"Being open-minded is the key: businesses should evaluate whether social networking is the right tool for them initially, as there is no value in jumping on the bandwagon if your company is not set to benefit in some way,” adds Cluley. “Organisations must also ensure that there are manageable internal security policies in place - without this structure, use of these sites could open up corporate networks to attack."

IT and IS people were some of the original social networkers.  Tools like wikis, email lists, discussion boards etc were all developed by programmers to support their need to share knowledge and work together to solve problems. Seen in this light, social networking tools are probably ideally suited to help raise the productivity of most IT teams.

In a digital social media age, it's evident that the art of social networking will become an integral part of the corporate structure - from internal communications and recruitment purposes, to corporate branding exercises and driving business growth. In short, social networks are here to stay so it's important for businesses to find practical ways to work with these sites, not against them.