Social Networking Staff Cost Businesses $65,000 Every Year

According to a report published by WebTitan, businesses loose around $65,000 a year through staff using social media websites for personal purposes during office hours.

WebTitan, who funnily enough sells software that blocks access to sites such as Facebook, claims that if employees of the average sized company spend just 20 minutes on social networking sites, this is equivalent to paying out $65,000 a year.

The purpose of this report is to show how company time is being wasted with unproductive activities such as tweeting, however this is quite a narrow way of looking at social networking in the workplace.  Would it not be better for companies to embrace this phenomenon and use it to their advantage, rather than running scared?

Smart businesses are actually doing the complete opposite to what this report is hinting at and encouraging employees to have a presence and actively engage on sites such as Twitter as part of their internet marketing.  These companies have realised that by allowing their staff to engage on social networking sites, they are in fact building an army of ambassadors and encouraging discussion around their brand online.

Much like you might deal with a child, rather than banning it from doing something it is likely to do anyway, it is much better to allow them to do it under your watchful eye.  Restricting the internet access of your workforce shows a lack of trust, is likely to cause low job satisfaction and motivation, and might actually end up doing more damage in the end.