In the beginning, social media connected friends with pictures, threads, newsfeeds and likes. The best social networks – like Facebook – make it easy to share content. Soon enough, those pesky marketers caught on and started connecting businesses with consumers. And most recently, businesses see that social media can foster collaboration between employees just as well as socialization between friends. Workface? Employeebook? Either way, we at blur Group are enthused by these companies bringing the power of social collaboration to the workplace – Chatter, Huddle and Microsoft SharePoint: a shortlist of three amongst many but covering the areas of what once was called ‘next generation intranet’ but now goes so much farther.

Just like on Facebook, employees create detailed profiles. But instead of ‘interests’ and ‘likes,’ they list their position in the organisation, their particular skills and projects they’ve worked on. The profiles form a more exciting company directory. With so much information easily accessible, employees can find and contact possible collaborators. The real strength, though, lies in the connectivity of social media. The sites make it easy to collaborate on projects with wikis, document sharing and workflows. Employees post a question or a presentation and receive instant feedback.

Piqued your interest? Keep an eye out, we’re returning to the theme of automating key business elements. We’ll be publishing interviews with some leaders in the field to get the inside scoop on what sets these companies apart, and where corporate social networking is going next.