We have heard of social media? So what on earth is Social Business?

Social Media is a media platform that provides people a place to connect with each other using social technology. Social business is the same concept but just inside your business.

Allowing people to connect online through an internal social network allows employees to connect each other in a more productive and efficient environment. We have recently installed a social business system at TomorrowToday in order to better manage our virtual office environment. The results have been great in respect to the team building relationships across geographic boundaries, introducing new team members and collaborating on team projects.

So why do we need to start an internal business social network?

I have been doing extensive research into the use of social technology inside businesses (as part of our research into the new consumer “Consumer 2.0“) and have found that this is fast becoming an imperative communication vehicle. I will explore this further in upcoming blog posts.

Social Business uses social technology to get the best of the best from social media. In other words we can use social business to:

• Collaborate more effectively and efficiently
• Communicate instantly with instant messaging
• Cut down meeting time by taking our meetings online
• Motivate and shift culture through company blogs
• Reduce costs on computer upgrades by using online software

To get an idea of what we mean by the benefits of Social Business take a look at this video that promotes the Social Business Technology through  program developed by IBM called Lotus Connections