Morse, a UK based IT consultancy, has published a study that reports Twitter costs businesses £1.4bn, so apparently, does the BBC. I, of course, think they’re full of sh*t.
From the BBC:
Staff who use Twitter and other social networking sites while at work are costing UK businesses £1.38bn every year, a report has said.
Over half of those surveyed admitted using social networking sites during the working day for personal use.
On average those people spent 40 minutes per week on these sites.
IT services group Morse, who commissioned the research, said that such online behavior clearly had a “productivity strain” on firms.
Excuse me?
Maybe it’s the fact that Morse is an IT Consultancy and IT professionals are some of the slowest adopters of Twitter and Facebook ( my guess is that, to them, IRC is still tops!) or maybe it’s because they have a bunch of employees addicted to Mobwars or Spymaster. Either way, the report completely leaves out any potential business benefits of the services.
In 1900′s Terms
If this was the 19th century, Morse would probably have commissioned a study that found ” Telephones Cost Businesses $1 million a year”
They would have been proven wrong of course, the phone revolutionized the way business was done.
In 1990′s Terms
Morse would have come out with a study railing against the cost of email to an organization. ” Email cost’s businesses $2 bn”
Again, they would be proven wrong.
Time will Tell
Just like any new technology, time will be the true test of the usefulness of social networks to business. Though any smart company could see that having more employees connected to more people is a benefit to their organization, not a cost.
Ask Comcast if Twitter costs their company or saves them money. My bet is on the saving money part. Their use of twitter for customer service is a case study in Social Media ROI. Twitter allows them to reach out, reply to concerns or answer questions out in the open, reducing call volume and thus costs.
But Morse doesn’t pay much attention to that. Instead they write:
“When it comes to an office environment the use of these sites is clearly becoming a productivity black hole.”
Baloney! I do, however, agree with one point – “Without guidelines and usage polices businesses are leaving themselves wide open”
Photo Cred: ernando