10. Social networks: not just for kids, for corporate too
Fiachra Ó Marcaigh, Director, AMAS
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Emerging Trends
Social networks are coming to a corporate desktop near you. Like many internet technologies before them, they are set to make the jump from personal to professional tools.
There are two major reasons for this:
- Marketing: Social networks are a powerful tool to reach a young audience on the Internet that is difficult to reach through other media
- Productivity: Like email, discussion boards and blogs before them, social networks can be useful in-house tools on company intranets
Investment bank Goldman Sachs has built a social network of former staff. There are over 9,000 ex-staff on the network, developed with electMinds, which specialises in corporate networking. The members get a social benefit from keeping in contact. For the bank, the payoff could be business referrals or simply a chance to rehire the staff.
Irish business networking
Software company Intuit has created a social network to offer support for its Quicken finance software. Network members answer about three quarters of the queries posted by fellow Quicken users on discussion boards.
The company answers some queries and monitors the network boards for suggestions on improving its products.
Additional features, such as blogs and podcasts, are to be added to the social network later this year.
The LinkedIn business-oriented networking site is heavily used by recruiters. So much so that there is a mini-industry of books, papers and seminars on how to use LinkedIn for recruitment. One author, Shally Steckerl of Microsoft, has over 7,000 contacts in his LinkedIn network.
Fiachra Ó Marcaigh leads strategy, research and usability assignments for AMAS.
Back to contents of State of the Net issue 2
