With the value of personal social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest reaching into the billions, it hasn’t taken long for start-ups tailored to business and corporate networking to reach the same level. Case in point: Microsoft purchasing Yammer (which bills itself as a private social network for companies) for the giant sum of 1.2 billion dollars.
Whether or not acquisitions of such companies make financial sense for those paying the price doesn’t matter. Social media still has some leverage in the minds of executives. Although there have been several doubts about the overall value and meaningfulness of personal social networks, (Facebook’s IPO being one of them), when it comes to work collaborations, social networks are a powerful business with high demand.
Some of the reasons companies are paying big bucks for corporate social networks:
- Instant networking
- Collaboration and storage network
- Ease of communication across different departments, offices, and locations
- A system that allows instant updates and status notifications to reach a specific but broad network of people
- The network reaches mobile, tablet, and desktop platforms. It’s accessible from anywhere.
For the foreseeable future, social media and networks are here to stay, especially to change the way people collaborate, share information, communicate in finishing projects and task and keeping clients updated.
