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Social Networking for Businesses: Is it a Boon or Bane?

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Chugh, R 2012,‘Social Networking for Businesses: Is it a Boon or Bane?’.In Cruz-Cunha, MM, Putnik,
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Organizational, Managerial, and Technological Dimensions, IGI Global,Hershey PA.

Chapter 32
Social Networking
for Businesses:
Is it a Boon or Bane?

Ritesh Chugh
CQUniversity Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT
As expected, online social networking offers pros and cons for businesses, and it could be argued that
this recent invention has taken the world by surprise as everybody is now coming to grips with the issues
faced. Currently some businesses have allowed employees to adopt online social networking while others
are wary. It is safe to assume that the non-adoption often stems from a lack of awareness of the benefits
that social networking has to offer and the actions that businesses can take to negate the problems.
This chapter provides a simple yet detailed overview into the world of online social networking. The
pros and cons of social networking have been outlined and a review of four popular social networking
sites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Viadeo) focussing upon general information, group features,
design and information content has been provided. It outlines some practical usage guidelines that can
be adopted to make social networking successful. Ultimately to meet the demands of businesses in the
age of the Web 2.0 cyberworld it has become more important than ever before to understand this trend-
setting movement.

INTRODUCTION tive advantages. Social networking is not a new

Social networking sites (SNS) are empowering
a new kind of time and event driven communi-
cation that cannot be ignored. As new SNS are
being introduced at a rapid pace, businesses can-
not just be bystanders but need to join the social
networking bandwagon to gain strategic competi-
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-168-9.ch032
phenomenon but definitely new with the use of
computer-mediated communication especially
the Internet. Social networking is a novel way
of increasing a person’s business and/or social
acquaintances by connecting with other people.
Technology, most importantly the Internet, has
revolutionised the means by which people con-
nect. The Internet promotes social interactions

and helps to exploit and develop a structure to
the connections that people develop online. Social
networks are vital to the psychological well-being
of people (Durden, Hill & Angel, 2007). Licoppe
& Smoreda (2005) have suggested that technology
mediated communication promotes a connected
presence and technology acts as a limited surrogate
to face-to-face encounters. The online connections
that users create on SNS are often already a part
of their physical (offline) lives but computer me-
diated communication helps to manage, regulate
and expand their social networks.
Churchill & Halverson (2005) have related
social networking to the concept of six degrees
of separation that promotes the idea that everyone
on the globe is separated from everyone else by
no more than six intermediate personal relation-
ships. Social networking technologies help to
establish connectivity with people that would not
have been possible otherwise. The use of social
networking is rapidly increasing at an alarming
rate. Facebook had 150 million users early last
year whereas the latest figures reveal the num-
ber of users to be 500 million (Facebook, 2010;
Gordon, 2010). A growth of 350 million users in
over a year demonstrates the increasing popularity
of social networking. The trends in SNS show a
shift towards specialisation of the social networks
as they are segmented according to the types of
market segment they serve. SNS like LinkedIn,
Viadeo, Ryze, and Ning specifically target for-
mal business related communication whereas
Facebook, MySpace, and Orkut target informal
social communication. But as the popularity of
Facebook demonstrates, there is a grey area as a
lot of formal business activity is carried out on
Facebook. Barnes and Barnes (2009) have high-
lighted the importance of the ubiquitous nature
of SNS and how they are currently being utilised
by for-profit or non-profit businesses of all sizes.
It is imperative that the business value of SNS is
established and businesses attempt to understand
and utilise it to build brands, promote products
and services, and engage with stakeholders. Social
networking is blooming in the business world en-
604
Social Networking for Businesses
abling professionals and executives to rub virtual
elbows with stakeholders (Vascellaro, 2007) and
holds ever-growing importance for businesses
(Kriescher, 2009). Most current focus is on social
networking sites used for personal communica-
tion but due to their wide spread popularity for
business-related purposes globally, attention is
now diverting to social networking that caters to
specific professional groups. Singh (2008) has
warned that in spite of the numerous benefits
online social networking is prone to misuse and
abuse so it is most important to be also aware of
the shortcomings.
A considerable body of research on social
networking exists however most of the research
is focussed on the personal use of SNS for com-
munication. Few studies have provided a generic
insight into the world of social networking fo-
cussing on their use and adoption by businesses.
Whilst a lot of empirical evidence prevails in this
area, hardly any effort has been made to amalgam-
ate the existing findings. The existing literature
on social networking is fragmented, incoherent
and sometimes very technological so this chapter
provides a generic but detailed perspective of
social networking for businesses. The chapter
derives its offerings from the extant literature on
social networking. The unique contribution of this
chapter is that it provides a generic overview to
social networking usage for businesses that want
to use social networking by elucidating the lacunae
and forte of social networking. Whilst the use of
SNS from employees’ perspective is important,
this chapter focuses on the use and application of
social networking from businesses’ perspective.
The chapter begins by providing some definitions
of social networking and its broad classification.
The chapter then progresses to highlight the state
of social networking adoption globally. Next, a
comprehensive analysis of business use of social
networking has been carried out extensively focus-
sing on the pros and cons of social networking so
that businesses can make a well informed judge-
ment. This chapter has reviewed four popular
SNS (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Viadeo)
Social Networking for Businesses
providing a cross-comparison of their key features
and functionalities. After gaining an understand-
ing of the pros and cons of social networking,
the research methodology that was adopted for
reviewing the four SNS has been outlined. Then
findings and discussion provide an analysis of the
four reviewed SNS. Guidelines are then given to
encourage the use of social networking with a key
focus on how businesses could use this power-
ful medium for communication, collaboration
and interaction. Finally, the key premises of the
chapter have been summarised and the chapter’s
limitations are explicitly stated with an outlook
for possible future research. This research makes
no implication that one SNS site is better than
another. It simply compares certain key features
and functionality.
SOCIAL NETWORKING AND
CLASSIFICATION OF SOCIAL
NETWORKING SITES
Connections are no longer bound by geographical
boundaries. Now people can connect with others
from around the globe. The Internet is the driving
factor facilitating the online connections. Thus
the focus of this chapter will be technologically
facilitated social networking. Before going further,
some definitions of social networking have been
presented below:
“web-based services that allow individuals to (1)
construct a public or semi-public profile within a
bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other us-
ers with whom they share a connection, and (3)
view and traverse their list of connections and
those made by others within the system”(Boyd
& Ellison, 2007, p. 211).
“the use of a specific type of Web site focussed on
the creation and growth of online social networks
which allows users to interact”(Coyle & Vaughn,
2008, p.13).
“relationships that develop out of computer-
facilitated discussions about shared ideas or
common interests”(Kriescher, 2009, p.61).
The main focus of all the above definitions is
the use of networked technology to facilitate social
interaction. In the absence of a commonly agreed
definition this chapter will adopt the definition
of Boyd and Ellison (2007) who have proposed
a well-rounded definition that covers people,
technology and processes.
According to Wilson (2009), nearly 900 exist-
ing Internet applications and websites are classi-
fied as “social networking”. Although this chapter
has centred around one working definition of social
networking, the large variety of social networking
classifications often creates some confusion. To
eliminate the confusion and ambiguity, Erlandson
(2008) has developed the following classification
of social networking with a brief description and
examples in each category (table 1).
Referring to the above classifications of social
networking, the focus of this chapter is on social
networking sites (SNS) and not the other three
classifications although the other three classifica-
tions form an important part of social networking.
Anyone who has participated in SNS will at-
test to the following process that illustrates the
process of online social networking; an individual
joins a social networking site and invites other
known contacts to join. Those people then invite
their own contacts to join and the process repeats
for every subsequent person. SNS are commonly
used to keep in touch with personal acquaintances
and are now being used for keeping in touch
with professional acquaintances too. Apart from
establishing connectivity, Kriescher (2009) has
stated that SNS are used to promote events, offer
tutorials and training, facilitate discussions, and
post useful information.
The mention of SNS increasingly brings to
forefront names of sites like Facebook, MySpace,
Tribe, Orkut, LinkedIn, Twitter and many others.
SNS are often based upon niche interests such as
605
 Social Networking for Businesses

Table 1. Classification of social networking

Social Networking Classification Description Examples

Social Networking site
Social Publishing site
Social Bookmarking site
Social Cataloging site
Online community of Internet users where Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn
members connect with other members to
share common preferences, interests and
create social networks.
Any form of online content creation that Youtube, Wordpress, Blogger
connects the reader to the writer to offer
feedback, ask questions, and facilitate
conversations.
Tagging(bookmarking) a webpage that al- Delicious and Diigo
lows it to be accessed from anywhere
Cataloging items of interest like books and BookArmy, aNobii
CDs.

music, hobbies and travel. Most SNS have a set
of rules to maintain harmony amongst the users.
The purpose of people joining SNS varies for
one person to another. Some people may join to
pursue common hobbies while others join to meet
new friends or catch up with old ones. For the
purpose of this chapter, the discussion will steer
clear from personal use of SNS but rather focus on
their business and professional use. Nevertheless
it is important to mention here that the examples
of SNS provided before can be used for business
and professional uses too.
STATE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING
The usage of social networking exceeded web-
based email usage for the first time in February
2009 (Wilson, 2009). The popularity of social
networking has increased significantly over the
past 5 years. A study by research company Nielsen
(2009) maintain that two thirds of all online
population visit some kind of social networking
sites accounting to a total 10% of all time spent
on the Internet. Facebook accounted for 58.59%
of all United States visits amongst 155 social
networking websites demonstrating an increase
of 194% over 2008 (Experian, 2009). Twitter re-
corded a 347% growth whilst Facebook recorded
a 112% growth in people accessing the SNS via
mobile browsers (Comscore, 2010a) indicating
the popularity of mobile devices too. Another
study by Comscore (2010b) reported that 50.8%
of the total online population in the Asia-Pacific
region visited a social networking site in February
2010. The study by Comscore also found that in
Philippines, Australia and Indonesia, social net-
working is one of the most popular web activity
reaching approximately 90% of the entire Internet
population. Facebook also ranked as the top social
networking site in majority of the Asia-Pacific
region. In July 2010, Facebook reached 500 mil-
lion members that equates to about 8% of the
world’s population (Gordon, 2010). According
to a research by The Nielsen Company (2010) in
December 2009, it was revealed that Australia
leads in average time spent per person on SNS with
the average Australian spending nearly 7 hours
in comparison to the global average of five and
a half hours. This further illustrates an increase
of 82% over December 2008 when users were
spending just over three hours.
As evident from some of these statistics, the
rapid adoption of SNS is a global phenomenon
that is gaining rapid popularity and not restricted
to one country alone. This popularity is a very im-
portant reason for adoption of SNS by businesses.

606
Social Networking for Businesses
BUSINESS USE OF SOCIAL
NETWORKING SITES:
PROS AND CONS
Wilson (2009) has suggested that SNS have the
potential to become business enablers if busi-
nesses understand them well enough. The many
advantages of SNS provide a raison d’être for their
adoption by businesses. A study by Business.com
(2009), of 1400 CIOs reported that nearly 65% of
respondents used social networking as part of their
normal work routine. Examples of business related
work included reading blogs, visiting business
profiles, finding information and communicating
business-relevant information. The study also
highlighted that 83% of the surveyed companies
use Facebook as opposed to a 45% adoption rate
for Twitter. Social networking provides opportuni-
ties to connect with other people who are looking
for content, information and community and also
allows businesses to bypass intermediaries sharing
information directly with customers. The adop-
tion of social networking gives businesses many
advantages. Social networking will help to create
a connected and collaborative corporate culture
whilst also providing a range of efficiencies in
functions such as procurement, recruiting, and
training (Leader-Chivee, Hamilton & Cowan,
2008).
Social networking offers businesses new av-
enues for enhancing sales, marketing, recruitment,
research, and technical support (Wilson, 2009).
Social networking helps to find new business
opportunities and share knowledge, advice, and
expertise. Having a presence in SNS will help to
inspire and create trust in customers. A study by
Socialware (2010) conducted in North America has
reported that more than 60% of financial advisers
agreed there is a business value in using SNS.
This is supported by another similar social media
survey by LederMark Communications (2010)
who have reported that usage of SNS in national
financial services firms brings greater business
visibility, referral business, renewed relation-
ships and improved engagement in discussions.
Companies in various industries (real estate and
construction, healthcare, media and entertainment,
automotive, computers, food and beverage, retail,
telecommunication, financial services, advertising
and marketing, law, education and so forth) have
created a strong presence for themselves in the
social networking world. Nair (2009) has men-
tioned that a lot of not-for-profit organisations,
engaged in rehabilitation of alcoholics and addicts,
are also using SNS to facilitate communication
and provide members with a common platform
to share views that enables society upliftment.
The study by Nair (2009) has also pointed out
that the networking features of SNS were con-
sidered to be the most important of all surveyed
features that included profile features, networking
features, search and support options and security
features. It is interesting to note that respondents in
Nair’s study rated security features third in rank-
ing after profile features with search and support
being the last. So it becomes plausible that SNS
helps businesses to stay in constant contact with
their customers with networking being the key
function whilst responding to customer queries
more efficiently and effectively.
SNS can also be used for enhancing the re-
cruitment practices of businesses. It is possible to
advertise new positions on SNS or recommenda-
tions can be obtained from online contacts. Upon
short listing it may also be possible to explore the
potential employee’s social networking page thus
providing an insight into their personality traits and
past employment history (King, 2006). LinkedIn is
particularly very useful for this purpose. According
to Grasz (2009), 45% of employers, in a survey of
2600 hiring managers, reported the use of SNS to
research job candidates. This included screening
potential employees and online background refer-
ence checks of job candidates. Iyer & Sengupta
(2010) have reported that Accenture, the world’s
second largest technology consulting firm, plans
to recruit nearly 40% of their workforce over the
next few years via SNS such as LinkedIn. So as
607

social networking becomes more pervasive, it
is vital to adapt recruitment practices to fit SNS
and this will also lead to a reduction in the cost of
hiring. On the other hand it is also important for
candidates to leverage SNS for advertising their
skills, experience and keeping a positive online
image to increase their chances of being hired.
Holzner (2008) has strongly suggested the use
of social networking for marketing with a strong
emphasis on Facebook. SNS can be used by busi-
nesses to expose their products and services to a
large global audience who can then further promote
successful products and services within their own
networks. SNS are a platform businesses need to
be part of in order to build and support brands and
to create, cultivate and promote a strategic online
presence and personal brand (Solis and Breaken-
ridge, 2009). Everything that businesses do online
contributes to customer perception, business
reputation and helps in creating a personal brand
(Beal and Strauss, 2008). The business profiles,
the online comments, uploaded pictures, online
posts, members and groups the business belongs
to contribute to brand building. So SNS can be
used to improve businesses’ public relations and
marketing efforts.
Whilst the advantages of social networking
for businesses cannot be overlooked, the disad-
vantages cannot be ignored. SNS and their use
does not come without some areas of concern.
These range from loss in staff productivity to
online scams. Connolly (2007) reported that a
major television station in Australia banned the
use of Facebook at work citing productivity losses
as the main reason. In the United States 54% of
companies have banned Facebook and Twitter and
only 10% of the 1400 CIOs surveyed gave their
employees full access to SNS at work (Business.
com, 2009). Collins (2009) reported that half of
British office workers use SNS for personal use
during a typical work day wasting an average of 40
minutes a week per employee. These productivity
losses reportedly costed the British economy 1.38
billion pounds.
608
Social Networking for Businesses
Privacy invasion is another grave concern
with the use of SNS (Gross and Acquisti, 2005;
Rosenblum, 2007). The developers of SNS un-
derstand this issue and are taking proactive steps
to cater for members’ privacy. Facebook (2009)
states that it has “led the industry in giving people
tools to control the information they share and
with whom they choose to share it. User privacy
has always been a top priority for the company”
(p.1). On the other hand it is also important that
users make appropriate use of the security settings
that the sites provide. Apart from choosing the
right settings, users should not give out too much
personal information about themselves or their
workplace on the SNS otherwise it might end up
being used for malicious purposes like identity
theft, stalking, embarrassment, harassment, price
discrimination and competitive disadvantage.
After all the Internet is a public network! Often
the information posted on SNS is accessible by a
large number of people. Whilst good reviews are
to cheer for, businesses have to be prepared for
a backlash of negativity if downbeat reviews are
posted. Businesses have to be prepared for both
the negative and positive publicity when they use
SNS to promote their business.
Like face-to-face social networking, businesses
are using SNS to make new contacts, contact
potential customers and market. SNS are used
as an online marketing strategy to build brand
reputations and customer relationships (Harris
and Rae, 2009). But the process of creating such
online relationships through SNS is more of an in-
formal approach as its lacks the vital interpersonal
relationship. It is often hard to build credibility
among customers as online SNS cannot profi-
ciently represent intricacies of word-of-mouth
communication (Brown, Broderick, & Lee, 2007).
Despite these negatives Microsoft, like other
large organisations, sees it as the future mode of
real time communication. In July 2010 Microsoft
released an add-in that allows users of Microsoft
Outlook to add Facebook to Outlook. The add-in
allows Outlook users to view status updates, pic-
Social Networking for Businesses
Table 2. Advantages and disadvantages of social networking sites
Advantages
Develop new contacts
Diversity of contacts
Low costs
Builds credibility
Eliminates geographical boundaries
Highly interactive
tures and wall posts from their Facebook account
without having to leave Outlook (Newman, 2010).
Microsoft Outlook Social Connector provides a
feature that brings together social views of a per-
son’s acquaintances in to the Microsoft Outlook
inbox. The Outlook Social Connector provides a
rich, aggregated collection of information about
the sender that includes picture, name and title
of the sender.
Shortcomings, like the ones raised in Table
2, raise an alarm and call for specific guidelines
outlining the use of social networking at work.
Guidelines need to be specific, clearly indicating
when and what employees can post on SNS. The
use of SNS at work can often create an overlap
between personal and professional life so em-
ployees need to be very careful of the content
that they post online and ensure that online social
networking does not become counter-productive
to the needs of the business.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study reviewed four SNS in order to empower
businesses allowing them to make more informed
decisions regarding SNS usage. The four sites
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Viadeo were
selected based on the high number of members
subscribing to these sites. All four are very
popular, with millions of members globally. The
choice was also based on the target audience of
these sites with Facebook and MySpace predomi-
Disadvantages
Identity theft
Online scams and harassment
Lacks anonymity
Time consuming
Privacy invasion
Lacks face-to-face interaction
nantly being more entertainment oriented whereas
LinkedIn and Viadeo target a more professional
market. There is, however, a growing overlap in
the market that these SNS serve. An evaluation
chart was developed to better understand and
review the functionality and services provided by
the four SNS, based upon the social networking
evaluation chart developed by Digizen.org (2010).
The chart helped in reviewing the SNS focussing
upon general information, group features, design
and information content. The intent was to assess
usability, taxonomy, accessibility and content
provided by the four SNS. The information pre-
sented in this review has been drawn from publicly
available information on the four SNS and based
upon an exhaustive review of the sites. The col-
lated results of the review have been presented
in Table 1. Review of the sites was conducted
between August 2010 and September 2010. In
order to ensure consistency of results, specifically
for the load times of the SNS, all evaluations
were carried out at the researcher’s workplace
with Internet that uses fibre optic backbone @
100mbits with dedicated virtual private network
tunnelling. Many online website load testing
tools were evaluated but most tools only offer
page loading estimates by downloading a limited
amount of data but Pingdom (2010) downloads
the entire page, providing an accurate picture of
the download time. Thus, Pingdom was selected
to test the load time of the SNS’ homepage.
The findings in the next section will help busi-
nesses better understand these four SNS and iden-
609

tify which one best fits their needs in supporting
their stakeholders. Not all the functionality offered
by the sites was reviewed, only the key features
that will enable businesses to make an informed
decision and harness the power of these sites.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The reviewed SNS facilitate communication
amongst its members by providing details of its
user population, opportunities for creating self-
profile, and recommender systems that allow
members to interact with each other. Each of the
selected sites, as expected, has their own unique
similarities and differences. A brief description
of the four SNS follows.
Facebook helps people communicate with their
friends, family, coworkers and other acquain-
tances. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and
interact with the people they know. Facebook’s
navigation gives users access to core site func-
tions and applications. Profile, friends, networks
and inbox have a prominent place at the top of the
user’s profile page. Facebook provides access to
multiple applications in the form of photos, notes,
groups, events and posted items. Apart from Face-
book’s applications, users can also add third-party
applications to their account. Facebook allows its
users to control the information they share and
with whom they choose to share it. Users also
have the ability to share and restrict information
based on specific friends or friend lists.
MySpace allows members to create unique
personal profiles online in order to find and
communicate with old and new friends. A lot of
musicians, artists, and bands are members as it
allows them to upload their audio and video files.
MySpace provides its users with status updates,
applications, subscriptions and an engine for new
users that recommends games, music and videos
based on their past search patterns. MySpace
allows members to rank other peoples’ profile
photos, play games, post and view classified ad-
610
Social Networking for Businesses
vertisements and most importantly discover new
music and artists. To cater for privacy, MySpace
allows its members to choose if their content
could be viewed by friends only, 18 and older,
or everyone.
LinkedIn can truly be called a business net-
working site. It helps in establishing professional
profiles online, staying in touch with colleagues
and friends and finding experts, ideas and job
opportunities from a wider professional network.
This SNS is aimed at connecting professionals,
finding business opportunities and potential
partners, and talent hunting. LinkedIn allows
users to ask questions for the business commu-
nity to answer. This helps in sharing knowledge
by connecting with a vast number of qualified
professionals and experts. LinkedIn, also, offers
premium paid versions that allow members to
view the full profiles of all LinkedIn members and
see who has viewed your profile. LinkedIn offers
its members a referral feature that enables them
to solicit reviews and referrals from other users.
Viadeo is the world’s second largest business-
oriented social networking site (Virki, 2009) that
allows its members to increase their business op-
portunities by discovering new clients, staff and
business partners. The site is regularly used by its
members for sharing advice and building a network
of contacts. The site also helps in showcasing ex-
pertise, headhunting and finding business partners
for collaboration. Viadeo is a useful business tool
for social networking, career management and
enhancing the visibility and online reputation of a
business. In addition to free membership, Viadeo
offers premium membership, advertising, and job
advertisement placement services to recruiters.
All four sites allow users to create personal
profiles to describe themselves, and let the users
set their privacy setting to control how public or
private the profile could be. Currently SNS seem
to be encountering a high level of control and
improvisation in order to counteract the problems
of privacy invasion. All the reviewed sites have
privacy policies that users are encouraged to read
Social Networking for Businesses
before they accept membership but little is known
about whether users are aware of the privacy set-
tings. Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn have
links to their privacy policies in the sites’ footers
whereas Viadeo does not have a dedicated privacy
policy displayed on its site rather it has a clause
about privacy in the general terms of sale and
use, which is accessible through the link on the
site’s footer. To safeguard the interests of Viadeo
and adequately inform users it would be useful to
have a dedicated privacy policy.
All four SNS encourage their users to provide
a lot of information in their profiles so that adver-
tising can be more targeted. Advertisements are
one of the main ways these sites generate revenue
so it comes as no surprise that these four sites
subject their members to advertisements. They
do not pre-screen the content their members post
but encourage all of them to exercise caution. The
creation of groups in these SNS make it easy for
like-minded people to come together to discuss
specific interests and topics. All of the four sites
allow members to create new groups and send
out invitations inviting other people to become
members of the group.
Many global websites are multilingual and
these four SNS are no exception. They allow us-
ers to change the language in which content on
the site is displayed. Profiles can be displayed in
the chosen languages. Facebook is available in 68
languages, MySpace in 25 and both LinkedIn and
Viadeo are available in 6 languages. The availabil-
ity of these sites in multiple languages indicates
the diverse nationalities of the users they attract.
The sites were easy to access but MySpace ap-
peared to be cluttered, making it time consuming
to discover the various features. This cluttered
feeling may not be very appealing to a business
audience. Understandably the focus of MySpace
is a younger audience so the networks that can be
formed on the site also cater to provide content
for them. Viadeo and LinkedIn differentiate them-
selves from the other SNS by providing services
focussed on professionals and businesses, allow-
ing them to expand their careers and businesses.
None of these four sites offered video in-
teractivity for their members. Providing video
interactivity will make the networking experience
richer so it is recommended that video interactiv-
ity is introduced as part of future enhancements.
The load time of the reviewed SNS’ home page
was also determined. The fastest site to load was
MySpace at 1.1 seconds with Facebook trailing at
1.4 seconds, LinkedIn at 2.3 seconds and Viadeo
at 5.6 seconds. Three tests were performed on
different dates and times of the day to ascertain
the average load time for each site.
The Microsoft add-in “Outlook Social Connec-
tor” not only allows a user to connect to Facebook
but also to MySpace, LinkedIn and Viadeo. Out-
look Social connector supports all the reviewed
four SNS. This will enable employees to keep
in touch with their business acquaintances and
develop further networks within their Microsoft
Outlook pane.
The four reviewed SNS offer a rich collab-
orative environment with minor distinctions dif-
ferentiating one from the other (Figure 1). When
choosing a SNS, it needs to be taken into account
that each of the SNS primarily seems to serve a
different market segment with some overlap. Pro-
fessional sites like LinkedIn and Viadeo are more
conservative in their approach in recruiting new
members whilst sites like Facebook and MySpace,
although also used for business networking, seem
to adopt a more aggressive approach.
The latest trend to engulf social networking is
mobile networking. A lot of social networking
site providers are now making it possible for their
members to use mobile devices to access their
SNS, create profiles, create and send messages
and facilitate discussions. Facebook, MySpace
and LinkedIn offer dedicated mobile versions of
their sites whereas all four sites offer access to
their sites via easily downloadable applications
too. Mobile phone applications put the business
networks and social connections just a click away
611

Figure 1. Review of four popular social networking sites
whilst promoting ubiquity too. The mobile ver-
sions of the reviewed sites offer limited function-
ality.
Recommender systems present users with
information that may be of interest to them and
the available options are often filtered according
to the user’s preference (Bonhard & Sasse, 2006).
In the case of SNS the recommender systems
recommend other users or groups that may be of
interest to a particular user. The reviewed SNS are
no exception, to this excellent way of connecting
users to others they may know or be interested
in, with all four utilising recommender systems.
The four SNS provide onsite searching capa-
bility that allows members to look for specific
content, groups and other members within the
612
Social Networking for Businesses
site. Public profiles are available for indexing by
external search engines like Google and Yahoo but
in Viadeo members are given the option of opting
out from search engine indexing. This functionality
offered by Viadeo offers more privacy than other
SNS. In the case of Facebook people looking for
others may be able to find them through a search
engine but will still not be able to access their
profile providing it has been made private.
As evident from the review above there is
very little to differentiate one SNS from the
other. In fact it seems that most of the SNS have
very similar features albeit they are targeting a
different market segment. Ultimately it is for the
business to decide which SNS they want to use.
They may even choose to have a presence on a
Social Networking for Businesses
selected few so that a wider market segment is
catered for and their own requirements are met.
These findings will enable businesses to make
an informed decision that is guided by an insight
into some key functionality and features. In spite
of the problems, it is important that businesses
avoid draconian measures such as total access
bans on SNS from workplaces in today’s Web
2.0 age. Businesses should do as much or as
little as they have time for but should not ignore
social networking completely as it is here to stay.
Businesses need to find a more pragmatic way to
operate with SNS rather than against them. It is
important to choose the SNS that work best for
business operations creating an effective online
presence and the establishment of constant inter-
activity with the customer base.
SOCIAL NETWORKING
USAGE GUIDELINES
Based on the problems identified with the use
of SNS it is vital that businesses develop guide-
lines for the appropriate usage of SNS. A study
by Socialware (2010) found that only 57% of
the respondents were aware that their company
has a social networking policy and 32% of the
respondents stated that they do not have any
policy in place. In recent research by Manpower
(2010), of more than 34,000 employers surveyed
globally, 75% reported that their organisation did
not have a formal policy regarding the on-job use
of SNS such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
The study by Socialware only gathered data from
North America whereas the study by Manpower
was global so it can be suggested that the results
were similar and largely indicative of the absence
of a formal policy.
Social networking usage guidelines or recom-
mendations will help in facilitating effective use of
SNS, protect the interests of businesses and help
businesses achieve the maximum benefits of SNS
(Barnes & Barnes, 2009). Business stakehold-
ers form opinions about a business based on the
interactions and comments on SNS and negative
comments can be harmful for business reputation
so it is important to have some guidelines that open
up positive and knowledgeable online interactions.
Since the participation of employees in SNS
is a personal decision, well written guidelines can
help to provide employees with practical advice to
positively channel online discourse thus being a
win-win situation for the employees and employers
too. Regardless of the size of the business, it is
vital to have some guidelines that clearly outline
the do’s and don’ts of how employees use SNS
for business. Many companies globally have de-
veloped comprehensive guidelines (BBC, 2010;
Intel, 2010; Oracle, 2010; Telstra. 2010) for online
social networking at work. Some guidelines that
businesses can incorporate in their social network-
ing policy are presented below:
• Employees should be personally respon-
sible for the content they write on SNS.
• Employees should be encouraged to pro-
tect their privacy and respect others pri-
vacy on SNS.
• Employees should be made aware that they
are writing for themselves and not on be-
half of the business. Often businesses will
have designated employees who are al-
lowed to write on behalf of the business.
• Employees should respect trademarks,
copyrighted information, fair use and fi-
nancial disclosure laws as applicable.
Disparaging or denigrating comments
should not be made.
• Employees should not disclose confiden-
tial business or other proprietary informa-
tion that has not been made public through
regular reporting channels.
• Employees should show consideration for
the audience. Personal insults, obscenity,
abusive and racial slurs should be deemed
unacceptable. A simple rule that applies
here is that if the comment cannot be made
613

to a person’s face then it should not be
made on SNS. All posts should be mean-
ingful, respectful and professional.
• Employees should be encouraged to add
disclaimers to their content. Employees
need to clarify that opinions they provide
are their own and do not reflect the views
of the business.
• Employees’ online activities should not af-
fect their daily job targets or productivity.
• Employees should not post anonymously,
should use their real names and identify
their roles in the business. This will help
to eliminate any ambiguity and bring trans-
parency to the postings.
• Negative comments should be managed
with constructive feedback rather than just
ignoring them.
This broad set of guidelines is based on good
practice and trust. It is important to note that
stringent guidelines can often stifle creativity
and discourage participation. The guidelines are
meant to be a starting point for approaching so-
cial networking and can thus be applied to all the
classifications of social networking mentioned in
Table 1. These guidelines can be incorporated into
a social networking policy that explicitly outlines
what is and is not permissible. The guidelines pro-
posed above only apply to business-related SNS
and are not meant to infringe upon employees’
online postings on personal SNS.
In addition to these guidelines, businesses
can employ moderators who will be responsible
for reviewing and approving content before it is
published on SNS. The moderators will ensure
that offensive and denigrating or out of context
content is rejected. While this does not promote
true freedom of speech, it will at least protect the
interests of businesses. The content that modera-
tors approve or reject needs to be guided by certain
principles but it is not the scope of this chapter to
discuss moderation principles.
614
Social Networking for Businesses
In the end it is essential to remember that social
networking guidelines should be aligned with
other policies that the business may have, such as
computer usage policy, ethics policy, performance
management policy and so forth, rather then being
looked at in isolation.
CONCLUSION
The growing importance of SNS comes as no sur-
prise as it revolutionises the way communication
is carried out and cannot be seen as just a passing
fad. The theoretical perspective presented in this
chapter has acknowledged the importance of SNS
for businesses. SNS provide a means of facilitating
and strengthening existing and new relationships.
SNS are poised to change how professionals meet
and share information. It can be expected that the
uptake of SNS by businesses will rapidly rise in the
future, especially as businesses realise their true
potential in transforming the world of marketing,
recruitment and career networking.
The information provided in this chapter will
allow businesses to make more informed deci-
sions about the adoption of SNS. The chapter
specifically highlighted the global state of social
networking and then narrowed down to the pros
and cons of social networking. A review of four
key SNS (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and
Viadeo) was conducted so that businesses could
gauge key features and functionalities of the sites
in advance before taking the plunge. Based on
some of the commonly encountered disadvan-
tages it was deemed appropriate for businesses
to develop some social networking guidelines
for SNS usage that guide employees, workplace
access and appropriate usage. This chapter has
proposed some guidelines that could be adapted
by businesses for incorporation in to their own
new or existing policies.
This chapter does not attempt to bridge the
plentiful differences between the immense choices
of SNS as only four were selected for review.
Social Networking for Businesses
There is a vast amount of research in this field
and there are many more questions that can be
raised for further investigation. Future work could
explore usability and quality characteristics of
SNS. Quantitative studies that could evaluate the
tangible benefits of SNS are a further possibility.
Some other research questions gain prominence
such as the impact SNS have on the privacy of its
members or the type of communication (personal
or business-related) that SNS facilitate.
Changes in the social networking scenario can
be expected in the future as it moves more into
the mainstream business world and SNS adoption
enhances. Adapting to this change quickly and
keeping up with the pace will be an important
formula for success. Businesses have to be pre-
pared to adapt these changes in order to maintain
and strengthen their competitive advantage. Busi-
nesses should recognise the importance of SNS
in shaping public perception about the business,
its products and services and its interactions with
stakeholders. Once businesses are committed to
supporting SNS then all stakeholders can inter-
act knowledgeably and socially in cyberspace
but within the limitations of social networking
guidelines. It is advisable that social networking
is approached cautiously but optimistically after
understanding their strengths and weaknesses.
It can be predicted that in the future only those
businesses that integrate social networking in their
business operations will be able to become more
competitive. In conclusion, social networking is
here to stay and businesses need all the support
they can garner to understand this challenging
mode of communication.
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
Profile: Information provided about yourself
on a social networking site.
Recommender System: An automated system
that provides users with information that may be
of interest to them.
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Social Networking for Businesses
Really Simple Syndication (RSS): A web
feed format for delivering the latest content from
sites that interest people by not having to visit
each site individually.
Social Networking: A phenomenon that al-
lows people with similar interests to meet, interact
and expand their contacts (both personal and
professional).
Social Networking Sites (SNS): Internet-
based sites that help to establish social networks
(relationships) with personal and professional
associates.
Social Networking Usage Guidelines: Do’s
and don’ts of how employees should use social
networking sites.
Web2.0: A term used to describe Internet-based
services (such as blogs, social networking sites and
wikis) that emphasise sharing and collaboration.