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06 October 2010 | Posted by Innova Institute

How companies are using on-line social networks?

On-line social networks, for example: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc., are Web 2.0 tools that offer support to maintain the contact with friends and colleagues. According to The Nielsen Company these tools are quite used, since social network users we spent more than five and a half hours every day on these sites on average (data from December 2009). Therefore, on-line social networks sites can be an opportunity for enterprises; some of them have taken them into account and they benefit from them. For instance, Ikea did an advertisement on Facebook to promote the opening of a new store (more information about this advertisement can be found on "Study of the On-line Social Networks impact" posted on Innova Institute blog). This example is not an isolated case, other organizations have studied how on-line social networks can help their business. However, in the academic field limited research literature has been found about this topic. The Innova Institute (BES La Salle) has promoted an analysis to study the trends in the usage of social networks by firms.

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Guzman's (2010) master thesis focus on this gap, the objective of the project was to do an exploratory study to know how that enterprises use on-line social networks. The main conclusions of this project are the following ones:
  • Among the studied enterprises, Facebook is the most used on-line social network site, the second one is Twitter and the third is LinkedIn.
  • Almost all enterprises show an uncompleted description of their profile, which it could become a drawback for their identity.
  • The majority of the studied enterprises only have one profile, which it could be an advantage to avoid stolen identities and Internet frauds (Fraser & Dutta, 2008).
  • Almost none of the studied enterprises do not publish items (for example: questionnaires) to know the opinion of their "friends", it could be useful to them to improve their status (Fraser & Dutta, 2008).
  • The studied enterprises focus on their fans or their customers, only a few use on-line social networks to connect with their workers and collaborators.
Do you think that these results can be generalized? What do you think about enterprise's role in on-line social networks? Have you had any relationship with firms through on-line social networks?
 
References:
  • Fraser, M. & Dutta, S. 2008, Throwing sheep in the Boardroom. How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World, 1st Ed, Wiley, Chichester, England.
  • Guzman, I., 2010. Estudi de l'ús de les xarxes socials per les empreses. Master Thesis, La Salle, Ramon Llull University.
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