We recently published data that analyzed application activity in more than 1,250 organizations worldwide and confirmed what most assumed to be the case: that Facebook is indeed the dominant player in social networking, consuming 87% of all social networking bandwidth observed. However, what was somewhat surprising is that social networking has not slowed the usage of webmail (personal use email) or IM. Quite the contrary, in fact, compared with 12 months ago these application categories are very healthy with IM traffic, as a percentage of overall traffic more than doubling; while webmail increased nearly 5 fold.
Our data (the largest sample ever published) also refutes a few assumptions:
What About our Facebook Friends in Europe?
The beauty of a large, global sample size is that there are many layers to peel back (much like an onion or ogres if you are fan of the movie Shrek). In our Country Specific Findings, an Addendum to the latest Application usage and Risk report, we take a more detailed look at the social aspects of the workplace for Benelux, France, Germany, Italy, Nordics, Spain and the UK. The findings show a widely varied picture of social networking traffic, specifically Facebook.
Some examples….
In Benelux, David Slays Goliath.
The French are Social Butterflies.
German Usage is Locally Balanced.
Italian Users Get Plugged-In.
Social Plugins Crush All Nordics Competitors.
Have Spanish Users Forsaken Tuenti?
UK and Russia – a Hidden Social Networking Connection?
The data shows that social networking is a juggernaut that is going to be nearly impossible to slow within the corporate world, much less outside of it. The business uses and benefits are pretty clear. Are there risks? Absolutely. Is productivity one of those risks, ? I do not think so and if so, it is relatively small. More importantly, would blocking social networking make an employee more productive? Unlikely.
Think about it. If an employee wants to waste time and cannot use option A (social networking), are they going to go and work on their latest project? More than likely they will move to option B or C – neither of which is what they should be doing.
Non-productive employees existed long before social networking became popular and addressing productivity is an HR and direct management issue; not a security issue.
Let us know what you think.
Download the country specific findings here: Country Specific Findings
Our data (the largest sample ever published) also refutes a few assumptions:
· 80% of the bandwidth attributed to Facebook is merely people working while watching for updates. Therefore, the argument that Facebook is killing productivity—conjuring images of Facebonkers and Farmville Freaks—is simply unfounded.
· While employees are socializing via Facebook and the other 60 or so social networking applications found, they continue to also do so via IM and webmail. In other words, the modern-day, multi-tasking workforce is showing us that online communication is not a zero-sum game.
What About our Facebook Friends in Europe?
The beauty of a large, global sample size is that there are many layers to peel back (much like an onion and ogres). In our Country Specific Findings (new link to report), we take a more detailed look at the social aspects of the workplace for Benelux, France, Germany, Italy, Nordics, Spain and the UK. The findings show a widely varied picture of social networking traffic, specifically Facebook. Some examples….
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