Social Networking Banned by 25% of Businesses

Challenger, Gray, & Christmas, the folks best known for their annual March Madness productivity-loss projections, published a study today detailing business policies on social networking sites. With social networking apps becoming so predominant in the mainstream, I’m always curious whether businesses view social network as more Friend or Foe.

Social Networking Attitudes

• 59% don’t have a formal social networking policy
• 50% said social networking isn’t a problem as long as employees get their work done
• 23% block social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, Linked-In)
• 10% use social networking for networking, marketing, and sales

Positive Impacts

• New tool for close customer interaction
• Significant networking benefit through sites like Linked-In
• Can be used for internal employee communication
• Generates new business

Negative Networking Impacts

• Loss of productivity
• Sites produce extra bandwidth demand
• Potential security risk (malware source)
• Potential for company data leaks

Take-Away

Social networking is like anything on the Internet. There is a lot of junk, but there are a lot of great applications. To outright ban all social networking is throwing the baby out with the bath water. These types of applications require a more nuanced view that varies with the business.

• Address the problems as they occur with specific individuals
• Regulate hours specific sites can be visited
• Use QoS to limit bandwidth impacts from apps like streaming videos
• Block or limit access to specific sites
• Employ content-inspecting devices to prevent data leaks

Tags: bandwidth, business social network, challenger gray, facebook, internet, linkedin, managing social networks, myspace, network, networking, social networking, social networks