Business turning increasingly social
The Social Intranet Study examines social media use on corporate intranets and its popularity with employees and executives. The results reveal rapid adoption in the past year.
Social media tools have become a widespread reality intranet on the corporate intranet, in wide use by a majority of organizations. Six in 10 have at least one social media tool available to some or all employees.
The most popular Intranet 2.0 tools are blogs, discussion forums, instant messaging and wikis. Social networking is increasingly popular and on the rise, present in 43 percent of organizations that have at least one social media tool - up nearly 15 percent from 2010. As the technology that powers intranets improves, the report predicts that video blogs, employee-generated videos and video sharing will become more popular.
Surprisingly, nearly one-third of organizations do not have Intranet 2.0 tools (to the best of their knowledge). Organizations that haven't adopted such tools are now in the minority, and the report warns they risk losing out in the "global talent crunch" - the fight for young, talented individuals to replace the rapidly aging and retiring baby boomers.
When asked what stage, or degree, of "social" their intranet was at, nearly half of respondents (47%) said it was elementary, with one or two social media tools, but no enterprisewide use. Just 14 percent claim to have a full social intranet, with enterprise use of many social media tools.
Microsoft SharePoint continues to dominate; for those organizations that have deployed at least one Intranet 2.0 tool, more than half (55%) use SharePoint in some shape or form, and many are using it as the de facto platform for wikis, blogs or integrating third-party plug-ins.
Not surprisingly, most organizations have deployed 2.0 tools as a means of improving employee collaboration and engagement. Cost savings or generating revenue from social media is not a priority for most organizations, the report states, and rather than being driven from the top down, the executive role is often an afterthought, with employees being the priority for most deployments.
Satisfaction levels with internal social media are quite poor. In fact, the report warns, executive and employee satisfaction is dangerously low. "If your executives aren't happy, and your users aren't happy, your social media efforts are failing,"
Following on from this point, the greatest barrier to implementation cited by organizations that don't have any 2.0 tools is lack of executive support. Other roadblocks include IT support, competing organizational priorities and lack of interest.
Key findings
- 28 percent of executives contribute to Intranet 2.0 tools on a weekly basis or more frequently.
- 38 percent have spent less than $10,000 on 2.0 tools.
- 58 percent say employees contribute to 2.0 tools on a weekly basis or more frequently.
- 78 percent of organizations have user content governance, standards or policies.
- 14 percent of organizations measure the ROI of their Intranet 2.0 tool.
What is a "Social Intranet"?
"An intranet featuring multiple social media tools for most or all employees to use as collaboration vehicles for sharing knowledge with other employees. A social intranet may feature blogs, wikis, discussion forums, social networking, or a combination of these or any other social media tool with at least some or limited exposure on the main intranet or portal home page." Source: The Social Intranet Study
About the survey
The survey was conducted by Prescient Digital Media, in association with the IABC Research Foundation in May/June 2011. It was completed by over 1,400 participants in all types of organizations across industry and geography. www.prescientdigital.com
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