BANGALORE, INDIA: The 'social networking phenomenon' doesn't need an introduction, as most of us are already there on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. At the crux of every social networking website is the fact that it enables you to build a virtual network of people whom you want to connect to and engage in real-time sharing, of thoughts and information.

But for whom is social networking relevant in the corporate context? For any business to be successful, it is important to understand and capitalize on two sets of people - its employees and its customers. This is exactly where social networking capabilities are becoming highly relevant and are set to take a leap in the coming year.

Also read: Why Social Networking is getting real?

Enterprises would create private social networks for quick employee collaboration
For 2010 and beyond, Gartner has predicted that greater availability of social networking services both inside and outside the firewall of enterprises, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead 20 percent of business users to make a social network the hub of their business communications. It adds that during the next several years, most companies will be building out internal social networks and/or allowing business use of personal social network accounts.

Imagine a private social networking platform similar to Facebook, that connects you with your colleagues spread across geographies. There are plenty of benefits that enterprises can obtain out of such social networking platforms, but a key point is bringing the employees to work through the enterprise's social networking platform. This might be slightly challenging, as organization would need to do some coaxing since employees are already comfortable with the current way of working with emails, phone calls etc.

Also read: Social networking a major business tool: survey

It makes real-time information sharing possible by allowing team-mates working on same project to share documents, updates and real-time feedback making communication transparent for all team-members to see. It would enable employees at all hierarchy levels to get connected to each other, developing an open work culture. Another benifit is that it would bring together employees from multiple locations with various expertise and give them a chance to pool in their feedbacks and valuable experiences, around an idea and innovate effectively.

Enterprises to develop entirely new skill sets around designing and delivering social media solutions.
Organizations can build their own private social network by either developing one, using open source social networking software like Elgg, or by utilizing enterprise social network services like Yammer. But since the area of social media solutions is just taking off, organizations will have to struggle initially, evaluating various social networking platforms available and deciding which ones are best for their businesses.

Not just the enterprise users, but the IT organizations who are used to develop and deliver collaboration technology platforms such as e-mail, IM and web-conferencing would now be focusing on delivering a social solution that targets a specific business value. Gartner predicts that through 2013, IT organizations will struggle with shifting from providing a platform to delivering a solution. It says that, enterprises will need to develop entirely new skill sets around designing and delivering social media solutions.

Until this happens, failure rates will remain high. A dearth of methods, technologies and tools will impede the design and delivery of social media solutions in the near term. But long term, enterprises will realize that social media is not a 'hit or miss' activity naturally prone to high failure rates, and that a calculated approach to social media solution delivery must be an IT competency. Post 2012, the social software market growth will accelerate as will the overall impact of social media on business and society.