Spun Digital - Finding customers online

Growing numbers of private businesses, particularly those in the media and advertising industries, have come to see social networking sites as an ideal way means of not only keeping employees happy, but of improving search engine optimisation (SEO) marketing efforts for little or no financial outlay.

However, a new report suggests that organisations in the public sector are still lagging behind.

Indeed, according to research carried out by the government's Society of Information Technology Management (Soctim), too many local authority bosses are continuing to see sites such as Facebook and Twitter as little more than time-wasting tools for unmotivated workers, rather than as the SEO-driving forces they can be.

Of those council chiefs polled by the quango, 90 per cent admitted that they have imposed some level of restriction on the use of social networking sites in the workplace, with 67 per cent having completely banned their use during normal working hours.

Among the most popular reasons for such a pessimistic approach are a fear that such sites can eat up bandwidth or lead to virus contamination, as well as promote time-wasting and distract employees from the job in hand.

And, while such concerns may be someway valid, Soctim has urged public sector leaders to dismiss any small risks and instead look at the bigger picture, namely that social networking sites offer the chance to boost search engine optimisation marketing efforts on the cheap, and therefore engage with their citizens and deliver their services without eating into their budgets.

Chris Head, who authored the new report, said: "The term 'social' implies 'not related to work', but this is a fallacy.

"CIOs and heads of IT need to take the lead and educate colleagues on the organisation's management team about the benefits of social media, as well as find ways to accommodate them appropriately and safely through the corporate infrastructure."

This comes soon after the latest eMarketer Social Network Ad Spending 2010 Outlook report predicted that the coming 12 months will be the period when online marketers will intersect search engine optimisation and social media campaigns with other forms of advertising.

Notably, it is expected that Facebook will account for 25 per cent of all social networking marketing spend before too long, though rival MySpace, with its younger audience, is likely to lose out as a result.