By Tim Mullaney, USA TODAY
From USAToday.com (5/14/2012):
After a slow start, Big Business is embracing social media in a big way. Forrester Research says the sales of software to run corporate social networks will grow 61% a year and be a $6.4 billion business by 2016.
Two-thirds of big companies surveyed now use Web 2.0 tools such as social networks or blogs, with use of internal social networks up 50% since 2008, according to a survey by McKinsey & Co. Nearly 90% said they have reaped at least one measurable business benefit, though most say the improvements have been modest.
Heavy use of social tools has a statistically significant correlation to profitability, said Michael Chui, senior fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute. But it's early: Only about 3% of respondents used social business tools for all three major uses — reaching customers, connecting employees and coordinating with suppliers, McKinsey said.
"Innovation is a two-way street," said Chris Laping, Red Robin's senior vice president for business transformation. "When people see things, they feel things. And when they feel things, they change."
Making connections
Using social networks to foster connections lets companies match the skills of people working all over the world who wouldn't easily find each other, said Eric Lesser, a research director at IBM's Institute for Business Value. It's especially valuable for companies built by acquisition, whose managers in different divisions often don't know each other, he said.
"You've got to let the conversations happen, even if you might not like all of that conversation," according to SuperValu's Chief Information Officer Wayne Shurts. "It's going to happen around the water cooler anyway."
Listening to customers
Companies can also use blogs and social sites to bring customers into their product-design process, said Barton George, director of the Dell computer division that sells to Internet-based companies. Through its IdeaStorm site, Dell has taken in more than 17,000 ideas for new or improved products, and has adopted nearly 500, including backlit keyboards that are better for working on airplanes.
Social media has the potential to be as important to the broader economy as more obviously business-related information technologies such as mobile phones and cloud computing, said Stacey Bishop, a venture capitalist at Scale Venture Partners, in Foster City, Calif.
"I'd put the cloud first, but they're all important and they're all related," Bishop said. "Mobile is an extension of the cloud, because it lets you get your data wherever you are. And social is the layer on top of that, making it easier to cross-communicate."
https://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2012-05-14/social-media-economy-companies/55029088/1
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