Gartner warns most social networking projects will fail

Most IT-driven social networking projects will fail initially, warned Gartner

Just 25 per cent of enterprises will use social networking data to improve performance and productivity by 2015, according to analyst firm Gartner.

The firm said in a new set of social software predictions that most businesses are still a long way from using social networks to analyse the information flows that occur between staff and business partners.

Organisations will generally hold back from snooping on staff in this way because of the distrust it causes. Users resent knowing that automated tools analyse their behaviour, according to Gartner, which recommends that companies secure the buy-in of the people they hope to include in the analysis.

Enterprise micro-blogging is another social networking activity that most businesses will avoid in the next few years, even after the popularity of the consumer-led Twitter.

Gartner predicted that standalone enterprise micro-blogging will have less than five per cent penetration by 2012.

"It will be very difficult for micro-blogging as a standalone function to achieve widespread adoption within the organisation. Twitter's scale is one of the reasons for its popularity," said Gartner research vice president Jeffrey Mann.

Gartner also warned that most social networking initiatives will fail initially, especially if led by an IT department accustomed to providing a technology platform, such as email and web conferencing, rather than a social solution that targets specific business value.

Fifty per cent of business-led social media initiatives will succeed, compared to 20 per cent of IT-driven initiatives, Gartner has predicted.

The firm has also advised businesses to develop social networking platforms with smartphones in mind. Just as the iPhone influenced user interface design on the desktop, the lessons in the mobile phone collaboration space will affect PC applications, Gartner said.

"IT organisations should continue to procure leading-edge smartphones for testing and to accumulate knowledge on how the collaboration applications on such devices accomplish business tasks," said Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney.

The Gartner predictions also suggest that social networking and email capabilities will soon merge into a single service.

"Email will take on many social attributes, such as contact brokering, while social networks will develop richer email capabilities," said Gartner analyst Matt Cain.