Over the last eighteen months to two years there has been a sizable increase in the number of workers using the various social media sites as communication tools.
Facebook and Myspace where popular however micro blogging sites such as Twitter seem to be increasing in popularity. Some businesses are using Twitter as an internal mass communication system where short messages can be sent to the entire workplace instantly. For external communications, social networking sites allow for communication with others within the industry to receive up-to-date information.
Being able to access information from related sources and quickly disseminate it throughout an organization can be valuable particularly if a potential problem is rearing its head. Reputation management is an important aspect of the online world and being able to reduce or stop any potential problems early is important.
Managers have been slow to recognize the power of social networking and its ability to provide instant communication both internally and externally. As more managers accept new technology you can expect to see growth in the numbers of professionals using these social networking sites in their day to day business life.
With specialist sites such as Linkedin being developed on an almost daily basis, social networking is not going to go away soon. Professionals are either going to use them to their potential, or risk being left behind.
Great Article, I think one of the things that often happens is that people don’t do the basics well in relation to Linkedin and then wonder why it is they don’t get the result they want from it.
I recently posted about a few simple things that people should do in order to get the best out of Linkedin.