Enterprise Social Networking: 10 Applications You Need to Know About

These days just about every product is trying to claim it has Enterprise 2.0 features, but what does this even mean? Well, put simply Enterprise 2.0 attempts to take Web 2.0 simplicity and move it into the enterprise safely behind the firewall. This means users can easily set up, customize and use these applications without any IT intervention whatsoever. They tend to encourage social behavior and one of the nice byproducts of using these tools is organic knowledge sharing. By the act of participating with social tools, people share information and help one another in a very natural, conversational way.

The big difference between Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 is that all of the conversation stays behind the firewall and almost never go out on the open web. These tools are all designed for enterprise use and help facilitate the same kind of social interactions we are used to seeing on the web with tools like Facebook Twitter and LinkedIn but within in the safety and security of your own network. These tools are designed for collaboration and social interaction, not for marketing purposes. In a future article, we will look at ways you can use Web 2.0 to promote your company and brand. 

Despite the advantages there are still many concerns among IT executives around using Enterprise 2.0 especially around governance. Employees entrusted with internal confidential information have to be careful about what they say on public networks. For instance, data around salaries, raises and layoffs should not be discussed publicly in an an open forum even in-house. So there have to be rules just as rules have developed around email, instant messaging and other communications tools across the enterprise.

Let’s look at 10 of the leading Enterprise 2.0 tools:

1. SocialText: This tool began as a enterprise wiki product, but has evolved over the years to include micro-blogging (think Twitter for the enterprise). You can create a profile just as you do on Facebook and people can follow or friend you just as they do with Web 2.0 tools on the open web. SocialText has a free version for up to 50 users, which is a great way to test out social networking in a department.
2. Yammer: Yammer concentrates on microblogging for the enterprise. The company was built around the idea of adapting Twitter functionality in the enterprise.
3. Socialcast: Socialcast takes microblogging a step further and gives you analytics and ties it into mobile, Outlook and SharePoint.
4. Jive: Jive coined the term "social business software" to describe what they offer. The platform includes tools to set up protected internal social networks, as well as external networks to communicate with customers, suppliers and partners.
5. Sharepoint: SharePoint is an interesting product, part social tool, part file share, part content management, part collaboration environment; it tries to be all things to all people. As such, it might not do anything as well as the pure play vendors, but it has such a strong presence inside companies today, it's impossible not to include them on a list of this type.
6. MediaWiki: If you're looking to create a wiki to share information, this is the same tool used to create the online information source Wikipedia. The best thing about this one is it's free.
7. Traction Software: One of the earliest companies to see the power of blogging in business, Traction offers a full suite of products including blogging, collaboration and knowledge sharing tools.
8. Telligent: Telligent combines internal and external social networking tools with analytics to help you measure the success of your efforts.
9. Newsgator: Newsgator has its roots in enterprise RSS readers, but in recent years it has evolved into a set of social media tools. It works closely with Microsoft Outlook and SharePoint and takes the Sharepoint social tools to another level.
10. Confluence: Confluence is an enteprise Wiki tool. It includes the ability to blog and can be integrated into existing enterprise systems including intranets, Microsoft Office and SharePoint.

Companies need to find new ways to let communication flow. As email becomes an increasingly clogged channel, these tools provide new and exciting ways to open up communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing. While they are not without some issues and concerns, they do provide you with ways to achieve these goals and encourage more interaction among employees in your organization.