Does social networking have a place inside business?

This week’s question is a little off track for me, as I usually focus on the strategies for making IT work for a business, whereas this is about making a business work by using IT. A subtle, but important, difference.

After a conversation at the Microsoft Australia Partner Conference, I am convinced there is something in this for teams – large and small – and that we may be missing a big team-building opportunity. Just as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have become important for broad social networking, I believe that if we fail to adopt new technologies such as, Huddle.com for sharing documents, and Yammer.com for connecting with co-workers we will be missing out on opportunities to build our teams.

The key to these technologies is that they allow groups to communicate better on multiple levels, in a time-shifted manner, so you no longer need to be present to be part of the team and to share experiences and contributions. As we have more ways to communicate, and computers become more prevalent and more connected, I think these tools must form some part of our corporate culture even in small companies of a few staff.

Benefits include:

• Foster staff loyalty by building internal communities.
• Keep conversations alive inside the walls of your office and retain the feel of ‘small’, even as you grow beyond the motherhood team of a small business.
• Inspire your employees to work together in new and creative ways.

Ideas I have of how to make use of these tools include sharing:

• companies successes quickly with all staff.
• changes in policy and procedure.
• upcoming event information.
• photos from the latest staff event.
• progress of projects inside and outside the company walls.
• and developing new ideas in and from the team.

While many of these things can be done on a simple intranet, there are more web 2.0 ways of driving this to compel the younger generations to get involved and engaged by the company culture.

No doubt we are about to see a new wave of consulting offers from people who have figured out which of these technologies are leaders, and how to use them to gain productivity, efficiency, connection and – ultimately – employee loyalty.

I would love to hear from readers who are successfully using these tools to engage their employees, and how they have derived quantifiable benefits from them without losing hours to social chit chat that extends beyond office walls.

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David Markus is the founder of Combo – the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.