Are we wasting time on social media while at work?
Lots of people use Facebook at work but an insignificant number really use it to get their job done or to increase their productivity. Actually, a simple case study showed that the time spent on social media at work accounts for a loss of $650 billion dollars per year which means a significant loss for the company’s profit. This important loss of productivity has been considered by certain employers who decided to restrict employees’ access to social media.
However, the marketplace will shift to a different direction because Facebook recently announced a new service that is designed specifically for the working environment. Facebook at Work is not what one might think first hearing this. It is actually a different service that will serve the enterprise world. This is definitely a start point for Facebook to change its reputation as a productivity killer.
What sets-aside FB@Work?
Firstly, what none of other similar services has is the great number of users already familiar with Facebook that are constantly connected and actively involved. More precisely the 1.3 billion users could become a great asset on the crowded market of professionals.
Secondly, FB@Work will bring in the possibility to chat internally, to share or to store documents. This version of Facebook is separate from your personal profile where everyone can see what party you attended last night when you weren’t actually sick. It will soon be available for Android and is already up for tests in the iOS App Store. The employees of a company will be able to collaborate through different tools because as businesses get bigger, it is getting harder to know everyone working in your company.
Just like now, you can see on the home page what’s new from your friends, on the enterprise version one will see what is new in the company, and there will be groups and the possibility to create events.
Competitors and challenges for Facebook
For the moment, LinkedIn is the leader among business professionals on social media and Facebook is a menacing competitor that threatens to shake its position. Besides that, Facebook should face a fierce competition from Microsoft, Salesforce, Jive, Asana and other services that offer project management tools, collaboration opportunities and chatters. It is true that LinkedIn doesn’t have any intention to come up with useful tools like chat for co-workers or storage space, but what everyone is afraid of when it comes to social media is the security of information.
One of the biggest concerns that they will have to face is how to gain the trust of big companies that are reserved in sharing personal information of their business. It is one to share your personal data like where you spend your free time, what you are looking to buy or where you are travelling and a very different thing to entrust Facebook with sensitive information like the numbers in sale, what company you plan to acquire or what marketing strategy you will apply.
Time will tell
It remains to be seen how they will draw financial gain because it is yet to be announced if there will be a free version with the ads included and a purchased version where no advertisement will be displayed. It is also to be seen how will the companies respond to this new Facebook feature and most important how the privacy and security issue will be tackled.