Social Collaboration For Small Business [infographic]

Businesses are growing accustomed to communicating with customers via social channels, but are you using social networks to collaborate internally?

Clinked, who provide collaboration software for SMEs, have just produced this fascinating infographic (below) looking at why social collaboration is rapidly growing in importance.

According to research by McKinsey, office workers spend an average 28 hours a week working through emails, searching for information and collaborating internally. Yet the evidence suggests that all of these things can be done more efficiently with social tools and the right attitude.

Using social networks to communicate internally reduces email volume by 30% and having documents centrally stored enables multiple users to make edits simultaneously – making it 33% faster for teams to draft documents. Furthermore, 74% of businesses report faster access to knowledge when using social software.

Perhaps the most cutting stat is that 96% of execs cite lack of collaboration for workplace failures. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that within the next 3 years, the number of businesses to whom collaboration tools are important will rise from 18% to 63%.

Clinked’s founder, Tayfun Bilsel, says his team has already noticed a shift in attitudes:

“We used to spend half our time educating clients about the benefits of social collaboration. These days, businesses are approaching us with clearly defined strategies for reducing overheads and connecting remote working teams. The market has grown up.”

It would be interesting to know if your business is using social collaboration and whether your experience reflects these stats?