Businesses to rely on social networking rather than email, research predicts

Increasing numbers of businesses will use social networking rather than email as their preferred method of communication in the future, a new study has revealed.

Technology consultancy firm Gartner predcited that up to a fifth of organisations will utilise social networking services as the main method of interpersonal communication within business by 2014.

More than half of companies are expected to utilise activity streams such as an "enterprise Twitter”, which would allow employees to receive quick answers to queries and share information.

The research anticipated that 70 per cent of IT-driven social media projects may fail as organisations deal with providing business-value enhancing solutions rather than technology platforms.

Mark R Gilbert, research vice-president at Gartner and co-chair of the Portals, Content and Collaboration (PCC) Summit, said: “A lot has happened in a year within the social software and collaboration space.

“The growing use of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook by business users has resulted in serious enterprise dialogue about procuring social software platforms for the business.”

He added: “Success in social software and collaboration will be characterized by a concerted and collaborative effort between IT and the business.”

Further findings from the report showed that a quarter of enterprises will boost performance and productivity through social media analysis.

By Jim Ottewill