The BBC reports that many businesses are missing out on the opportunities provided by social networking websites.
Many companies remain sceptical of sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and the like. They see them as distractions for their staff and of no use to the business community. However, researcher believe, according to the article that “Businesses which harness how employees use these sites stand to increase savings, productivity and profits….
“You have to look deeper as to why these people are using these networks. It’s to keep up with their friends, to mobilise them, to get involved in everything from politics to cleaning the local park. If you look at those reasons, then there are a lot of business counterparts.
“It can lead to better productivity if you can mobilise your people quickly through social networking.
“For example our press agency uses Twitter and FriendFeed to do things like find someone to talk to a reporter. With these networks you can find out who is online and get answers quickly. It’s about keeping distributed groups in touch and up to date.”
The reserachers also found that many people are using social networks to communicate in a way that is replacing email. In these times of overflowing inboxes, it can often be a more immediate way to stay in touch.
Read the full article here.
Liverpool Chamber itself believes that there are real benefits to be had from engaging with this technology. We’re on Facebook (you can be our friend if you like!). We use it to both be a part of Liverpool’s business and wider community, as well as to let people know what we’re up to and what events we’re running.
We’ve also just signed up to Twitter and are eager to see how that pans out. Plus we use this blog and Upcoming to stay in touch with interested parties. We also post pics from our events of Flickr, a good way to get a real feel of what we do across to our members. And that’s all above and beyond our normal old website (which is due for a BIG change soon).
Let us know if you’ve had any experiences with sites like these in the workplace by leaving us a lovely comment. Can you use social networks, or are they blocked? If you can, do you? Has it helped your business?
We all have to do it from time to time. That’s right, fire up the old PowerPoint and give a presentation. Nobody likes it, but like death, taxes and the office Christmas do, it comes to us all.
