Bangalore: Believe it or not social media is all over and has also invaded your enterprise. You certainly don’t need a research firm to justify with their report, what you already know- that employees carry their personal life along with them when they enter the workspace. Most of the employees make sure that they can be reached any time through their mobile devices, and they also prefer reaching out to others as and when required. News they can use about friends and events reaches them in a flash, and that’s the way they want it, reports Vasudev Murthy in cioinsight.com.

Enterprises cannot deny the fact that: the present generation that enters the workspace, assume that they can effortlessly access to the world of "tweets" and "likes" and status updates at work as well as it is at home.

The CIOs, considering the hype of social media and the risks it brings along are putting their best efforts to identify the threats linked with social media such as data security and confidentiality as this new reality impinges upon enterprise technologies. Even as the CIOs are trying to shut the doors and block the entry of social media, they are being pushed by stakeholders from across the organization to create a social enterprise.

Murthy in his article says that some enterprises are just opening up to social media, exploring new opportunities and playing a game of catch-up, while others have figured out that this trend would diminish rapidly as many companies have already embraced and are exploiting it. An organization's social media tactic is no longer just confined to only branding and marketing, it now also deals with finance, human resources, and business operations. To simplify further social media should no longer be the sole province of your company's marketing department.

Considering the above description and the fact that social media is inevitable CIOs need to embrace social media and to accomplish this some practical adaptations are required. Below enlisted are five key points that CIOs can consider as they think about Social enterprise.

Social media as an asset

CIOs need to incorporate social media within the enterprise as an asset, not something to fight. They need to take the responsibility and ownership of exploring the potential areas within the organization where social media can prove to be beneficial by enhancing company’s brand, processes, customer service, and internal and external communications. Social media which is thought to be distraction to employees can also be lucrative from business perspective, if worked out strategically.