By: Kristin Tomlinson

What exactly is productivity and how is it measured? In regards to a single business day, in the past, it’s how much paperwork you can skim through, complete, and finish, or how many cold calls you can make in a designated hour. But maybe, just maybe it can be classified in retrospect to how many social networking sites you connected or marketed to within an hour and how you were able to increase your sales and traffic by a certain percentage. Even though most business gurus would prefer the latter, certain businesses are still banning social networking sites from the work place.

Working Network Smart Produces Benefits

Of course, there’s the concern that, if given open access to sites like Twitter and Facebook, most workers would spend the workday tweeting or wall posting about unrelated and inappropriate topics, completely irrelevant to their work or tasks at hand. But, if implemented in an effective and appropriate manner, these sites can actually help a business instead of harming it. Social Networking has helped some of the major powerhouses reach unforeseen markets and consumers; has guided small businesses into bigger territories and playing fields; and it has even helped a presidential candidate sweep his competition in the general election and stake a 4 year claim to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Equal Rights For All

Emails and cell phones have been around for a years, yet they fall into the same category as Facebook and Twitter when it comes to social media and distractions. They too can contribute to straying far from the workload sitting on your desk, but they haven’t been banned, so why should social networking sites? Cell phones and emails are two primary components that help guide a business in getting goals accomplished and deadlines met, but they can also contribute to interfering with work and mingling with fellow co-workers. Social media marketing sites cannot be patronized and shunned when they can provide just as much (if not more) business, productivity, and web success that other media outlets can.

Embracing New Technologies Increase Productivity

Yes. There’s the possibility that workers will abuse these social networking sites, but by banning such sites, you are inhibiting the possibility of further growing a business and helping it prosper. Allowing an open environment that allows access to these sites will only create a more comfortable workplace to share ideas and thoughts of how to better a business, see results faster, and make it stronger. Businesses are being unproductive by avoiding such sites like the plague. By embracing such social media networking tools, businesses can take advantage of the endless benefits and power it can bestow.