Social tools are used for a number of business reasons; to promote a brand, improve reputation, increase engagement, encourage advocacy, and recruit, retain, and nurture relationships. Not only that, they are accessible 24/7. Just because we can use social tools any time, should we use them all the time?
Most companies ban the use of public social networks like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter for various reasons ranging from security issues to fear of productivity losses. Socialware has launched some limited free trials of their tools to help people better understand their value.
We asked some questions of Christopher Griffin, who has been a part of the Strategic & Emerging Business Team at Microsoft, and works with high-potential startups, the venture investment community, and Microsoft product groups in Redmond.