From pariah to VIP

Undoubtedly, Facebook and other social networking sites, including LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace, have created some of the most powerful communication movements known to mankind, most certainly rivalling the mighty global cellular telephone networks.

And like the cellular telephone industry, social networking is finding many ways to improve commercial services. It is being rapidly embraced by the business sector, which not so long ago, was looking for ways to banish it from the office environment for being 'disruptive', 'juvenile' and 'irrelevant'.

One of the major drivers for the widespread transformation of social media from pariah to invited guest is cloud computing and the services and platforms offered through the Internet.

There is huge potential for the alliance, or merger, between social media and the cloud. Dana Gardner, principal analyst at market research company Interarbor Solutions, says it's “kind of like chocolate and peanut butter”. In his ZDnet column - and in a more serious vein - he says social media-enabled business activities need the full involvement of core IT, and that IT has a new and increasingly important role in designing how corporations will find, reach, connect to, and service their customers, partners, suppliers and the various communities surrounding them.

A good example of Gardner's vision is to be found at Salesforce.com, where the company recently introduced what it terms a 'service cloud'. The application is built on a software as a service (SaaS) model and captures 'pools of knowledge' floating across the Internet, using them, once sorted, for the benefit of the customer service department.

Salesforce.com has now connected Twitter to its service cloud, allowing its sales representatives to access tweets from more than eight million Twitter users.

Many organisations are following Salesforce.com's lead, using cloud computing to optimise search engine tools to help mine the information on social networking sites and in the 'blogosphere'. It's a clear indication of the value big business is putting on social media, or more specifically, on the dialogue being conducted on social networks and blogs.

Companies see it as an essential component of new-generation e-commerce initiatives and tomorrow's marketing campaigns, and they're going all-out to influence it, steer it and generally tap into its energy.

Organisations are using cloud computing services to disseminate information via the most appropriate social media.

Martin May is regional director of Enterasys Networks.

In response to this trend, cloud computing services companies are developing tools to allow the sophisticated analysis of captured information to help optimise sales initiatives and accelerate manufacturing and marketing decisions. Cloud computing-based customer relationship management tools are expected to proliferate, especially those that help businesses search for social media content relating to their products or organisation - and then track, rate and evaluate future company-related conversations between specific social networkers and groups.

In addition to gathering intelligence, organisations are using cloud computing services to disseminate information, via the most appropriate social media, in the form of corporate PR messaging and advertising campaigns to networkers who might be customers, potential customers or important 'influencers'.

Not only do these services help companies inform their customers about new products and services, they also open direct lines of communication between manufacturer, supplier and end-user.

For instance, it is reported that one organisation has collaborated with Facebook to establish a 'working community' for its CRM platform, allowing developers to use cloud computing collaborative techniques to help expedite the progress of new applications, using input from selected end-users.

In a similar way, companies are looking to use social media to support staff recruitment activities, boost productivity and bring about project collaboration on inter- and intra-company levels.

Social networks are becoming much more than simply virtual meeting places for friends and acquaintances. Through their integration with cloud computing service providers, the doors are being opened for businesses to benefit and gain an all-important march on those whose infrastructures are mired in 'traditional' IT programming and thinking.

Looking to the future, perhaps Gardner sums it up best when he says: “I see a business world that no longer begins and ends its days in an e-mail in-box, or portal, but on the 'wall' of precisely filtered flow that defines the business process through a social interactions lens - not a back-office application interface. And this wall can be easily adjusted based on the user's activities, policies, etc. Just about anything can be added, or not.”

(Join Martin May on Facebook.)