Risks of Social Networks for Companies

After scanning some websites on the internet and after reading the blog contents so far I tried to find more about the risks of social networking tools especially for companies of a large size. In order to determine if the social networking is really such a big thing for companies I searched for some studies or surveys which would prove this fact beyond the presented articles on the blog. There I found a survey conducted among German companies. That shows that companies are willing to use social networking tools:

http://www.compliance-magazin.de/markt/studien/novell130608.html

The main aim is to improve team work productivity among their employees. The number of those companies is constantly growing and the usage of blogs, wikis, instant messaging tools etc. is a becoming a common thing. Further on it states that many firms are focusing on solutions which seem to be cost efficient like databases for knowledge management or document management tools.
Many of those applications which are already available on the web seem to be a risk for companies. First there are the risks from inside with information outflow via blogs, twitter, etc. No firewall or further means can stop employees from using those networks to chat about company’s performance if for example the company is going through hard times with expected layoffs or other negative consequences for the employees. Or workers could take “revenge” on their supervisors via blog entries after receiving negative performance evaluations. The following article focuses on those risks for the companies:

http://www.hrhero.com/hl/092509-social-networking.html?TOPIC

Additionally, as the following article from the Forbes magazine shows social networks like Xing, LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebooks, etc., are gateways for hackers or intruders willing to harm the businesses. The following article shows the described problem:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/13/social-network-security-technology-cio-network-social-network.html

Risks from inside and from outside through new social networks tools seem to be a serious concern for businesses. Unintended communication with the global communities without any coordination from the top management and threats from competitors willing to use the available information on social networking websites are a major problem. Nevertheless the trend is laid, and companies are trying out new ways in how to improve their performance by the usage of the available social networking technologies.

The sources I used for my blog entry are the well known Forbes Magazine, the Compliance Magazine, which is a major German publication on Governance, Risk and Compliance issues and the HR-Hero.com website. This homepage is an information source for HR legal issues and is a portal from a law firm in West Virginia. Especially this page is very interesting because it has very defensive point of view on the social networks in terms of employee laws and also highlights the problems companies have to cope with.

Karol Ceynowa (M10)