Social Networking at Work

Many businesses fear the over use of social networking sites at work so I was interested to see this information at MediaPost which shows that

“In the Workplace Media study, however, Facebook was by far the most popular social property, with 89% members of the site. The runner-up was MySpace (40%), followed by LinkedIn (31%), and Twitter (18%). Of the 18% who reported acting upon a business or product recommendation on social networking sites, the top categories were: entertainment (53%), dining out (50%), groceries (23%), beauty care/cosmetics (21%), apparel (20%), and electronics and pet care (15%). The survey was fielded in May 2009 among 753 American workers.”

Interestingly, the graph shows that the usage is not as major as companies suspect – although I wonder whether honesty might be an issue when it comes to owning up to how much they use the internet at work? I still think that social networking can be used by companies in a positive way. I think that if companies embrace it then it can help control the usage but also provide valuable connections which business thrives upon.