This is the fifth in a series of posts that Vanessa DiMauro and I will publish over the next few weeks, highlighting the more significant findings from The New Symbiosis of Professional Networks study that we recently conducted as part of our fellowship with The Society for New Communications Research. Please visit both Vanessa's and my blog regularly for the latest analysis.
“We use social networking tools to build internal peer groups and social communities to maintain a level of engagement with and among employees. As companies look to reduce operations costs in travel and operations it is important to improve employee community and engagement. We use wikis, collaborative technologies effectively for this.”
The above quote came from an interview with a senior executive from the IT industry that we conducted as part of the New Symbiosis of Professional Networks study.
Through the New Symbiosis of Professional Networks research we explored the expectations that professionals have for the use of internal social media tools within their companies to increase over the next two years. We identified a clear expectation that social media tools (formal or informal) will see increased adoption with more than half of respondents expecting their companies to increase social media use to share more content and do more company-wide communications over the next 1-2 years. Less than one in ten respondents expect to see no increase in their company’s internal use of social media tools.Not surprisingly, we found that those respondents with more networks are more likely to predict a number of changes. They believe that their company will increase its use of social media for forums and discussion use, greater competitive intelligence, as a replacement for email, and for more content-sharing.
In what ways do you see your company’s use of internal social media tools increasing over the next 1-2 years? (select all that apply)
N=356
Finally, our research suggests that many professionals are collaborating more outside of their organizations (as a result of social media) than within their organizations.
This is a significant and sad realization for many companies and executives who do not fully understand nor appreciate the value that can be derived via the adoption of social media tools and strategies - for internal use. Companies would be wise to embrace the desire and expectations by their employees to collaborate by implementing social media tools for internal (behind the firewall) purposes to enable greater connection between employees; encourage sharing of practices and experiences; and streamline communication.
The complete findings of the research can be found here.
The methodology for this study involved a mixed methods approach supported by quantitative data gathered via online survey of 356 professionals to understand their perceptions and experiences with social media in support of their decision-making. Select interviews of 12 professionals were also conducted using a semi-structured interview guide as part of the second phase of the study. Key demographics of the research include:
- Close to a quarter (23%) of respondents identified themselves as CEO of their organization; 50% as “Director” (24%) “Manager” (24%)
- Company size ranged from less than 100 to over 50,000 full-time employees
- Age was well distributed with the greatest proportion in the 36-45 range
- 25 countries were represented, with 58% of respondents living in the US
- All respondents were either the decision makers or influenced the decision process within their company or business unit
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