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What can ESN do for you?

Enterprise Social Networking. It’s a term that is thrown around lately in regards to jumping on the social network bandwagon and applying to the workforce. The biggest concern for companies are that they look at social networks like Facebook and Twitter as distractions within the workplace. Companies have begun to discipline employees for using these social networks while at their desk or have implemented restrictions on their computers to prevent visits to these sites. While social networks look like something that does not seem to be going away and used heavily by the workforce population (the 35-54 year old demographic has grown 276.4% in the past few six months, according to iStrategyLabs), it may be something that needs to embraced. Hence, enterprise social networking is something that can be beneficial to companies in this day and age.

Enterprise social networks are taking the features of the popular social networks and applying to a workplace atmosphere. They allow employees create profiles in the company’s internal network and provide them the chance to establish some identity. Allowing them to create blogs and voice their comments and opinions about topics can be a popular use of enterprise social networks. It allows a company to create a central hub for employees to create groups of interest and share documents with each other. These are all the functions that can be provided by enterprise social networks.

So what can enterprise social network do to benefit a company? A social network is a place where people can collaborate, connect, and interact online. All these functions are things that a company should want to encourage within their workplace. Giving employees more opportunities to interact with each other can lead to overall productivity. Especially now when many companies have employees in different locations, nationally and internationally, it seems like not only should companies be aware of enterprise social networks, they should embrace them.