Can Enterprise Social Networks Gain Traction?

Deloitte unveiled its technology, media and telecom predictions for 2009, and something that jumped out was how enterprise social networks (aka Facebook for the Fortune 500) are going to see more traction.

It’s an interesting proposition given how enthusiastically people have embraced social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, et al. The question is whether social networks have a place within the enterprise and whether they will have anywhere near the same kind of impact.

Deloitte is clearly bullish on the idea, suggesting that:

“Enterprises and governments are looking for cost-effective ways to distribute information throughout their networks. In 2009, this is likely to include more spending on internal social networks and the tools required to build and enable them. With the world’s highest penetration of consumer Facebook users, Canada is poised to be a global leader in transitioning this technology to the enterprise. Although social networks don’t cost much to deploy, the challenge is likely to be in measuring their return on investment.”

My take is Deloitte is being overly-optimistic. When it comes to adopting the “social” elements of the Web, the vast majority of companies are cautious and, frankly, scared to make a mistake. It has taken them years, for example, to climb on the blog bandwagon even though it’s a natural communications, marketing and sales tools.

So the idea that companies are going to enthusiastically embrace social networks is difficult to swallow.

This isn’t to suggest social networks don’t have a place within companies as valuable tools to collaborate, share information and network. But I think it requires a huge leap of faith for a CTO or CIO to implement social networks when other parts of the organization are conservatively approaching “low-hanging fruit” such as blogs.

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