Putting a value on social media in business

Minimising risk

Social networking enables risk to be minimised in many ways. The speed of publishing and the cascade nature of re-publishing allow businesses to address certain risks more effectively. For example, a specific message aimed a product recall or advisory can be communicated far more rapidly than could be done through other means such as email or paper mail as an adjunct to other mechanisms. When looking for specific skills to help in dealing with an issue, business networking through targeted sites such as LinkedIn – or even through generic sites where the overall “pool” of possible resource can be high – can help bring in skills that the organisation would otherwise have been unaware of. Also, social networking can now be used from pretty much any computing device – from PCs to majority of smart phones using specifically crafted clients.