A report by IDC pointed to a survey of workers that showed 57% of them used social media at least once per week for business purposes. It only makes sense that these tools, which have been optimized for usability and customization, are the tools of choice for business purposes. Workers find sites such as Facebook and Twitter much more user-friendly when it comes to communicating both internally and externally than some systems implemented by the companies themselves.

Workers are doing more promotion as well, regardless of whether they work in marketing, accounting, IT, or any other department. Sure, there are plenty of reasons to argue against allowing workers to use social networking sites while on the job (see Farmville) but the benefits can potentially outweigh the risks if the company takes the right stance on social media. Creating a Fan page and Twitter account for your company and then giving permission to employees to post to those social media portals periodically throughout the week can bring invaluable brand recognition, improved customer relationships, and can make consumers more likely to view your brand as a person rather than as a corporation. By connecting with people on a more personal level company’s can more successfully use their social media portals to promote sales, new products, and events without seeming like a robotic spam machine.

Some companies still see social media as a fad, but they will be playing catch-up with those companies which are “socially aware” – a term used by ChannelInsider.com to describe businesses who use social media to their advantage. Choosing to ignore social media can be a death sentence to companies, especially if they are part of an industry full of socially aware competition.