Oftentimes when we refer to social media we refer to how a brand can engage with customers or prospects to build relationships.  These relationships are external facing; meaning brand to consumer, and are used for functions such as product development, customer service, increasing sales, and marketing.  Through social media companies seek to understand and do things such as: empower their customers, collaborate with their customers and prospects, and gain actionable insight from their customers.A very similar type or relationship with collaboration, actionable insight, and empowerment also needs to happen internally WITHIN the enterprise; oftentimes called Enterprise 2.0, a termed coined by Andrew McAfee a few years back.

When you look at a company such as Dell, Boeing, or EMC that has over tens  of thousands of employees the potential to collaborate, share information, and build relationships internally is enormous (as it is for smaller size companies as well).  When social media really started to gain momentum most people immediately turned to its external uses.  Many of those involved with Enterprise 2.0 (myself included) believe that most companies should begin their social business transformation internally before branching out externally.  There are several benefits to doing this such as building a social corporate culture, familiarizing the company with new tools, and understanding how to gain actionable insight and drive business results from collaboration.  Once the company as whole understand this then it becomes much easier to build relationships and collaborate externally with prospects and existing customers.

I briefly explored a few ways in which social media can be used externally, but what are some of the benefits that enterprises can see from collaboration and social business within the enterprise?  Here are a few:

• Improving productivity by making information and people easier to find and connect with.  This also means reducing the amount of time that people spend on email, browsing through an outdated intranet platform, or perhaps finding the right person within the company to ask a question to.

• Knowledge sharing across the enterprise.  There are numerous Enterprise 2.0 examples and case studies of how companies have been able to either make money or reduce costs by sharing information from one individual, department, or location to another.  If one division of a company (such as a franchise) finds a way to save hundreds or even tens of thousands of dollars annually, imagine how much the company as a whole could save if they were privy to the same information.

There is a lot more to be said on Enterprise 2.0 as many of the same issues arise (as in externally facing initiatives) such as ROI, increasing adoption, getting buy in, organizational structure, and resource allocation.  I'm hoping to explore these topics in more detail here (as I do on my blog) but first wanted to get you thinking about social business can be used to benefit the company internally.

What are your thoughts and ideas on this?  Do you have any questions?  Let's discuss.