Collabo.com

New research shows that Twitter is gaining recognition as a useful business resource among younger demographics. A survey conducted by AIIM shows that 27% of 18-30 year olds see the value in Twitter as a crowdsourcing and feedback tool, compared to just 7% of participants over the age of 45. Twitter has become popular for young professionals as a way to find answers from experts, poll their followers, share opinions, and communicate during conferences and while traveling.

Business users tend to be more engaged on Twitter than personal users. Of those surveyed, half of business users actively post and contribute to conversations rather than just following.

“We’ve been tracking the rapid growth of Enterprise 2.0 – the business use of social media – for a couple of years,” says Atle Skjekkeland, VP of AIIM, “but Twitter has grown much faster than anything we’ve seen before. It seems to me that Twitter brings back such quick answers from any expert community that it cannot fail to have a lasting place within the general business toolbox.”

Of the 788 respondents to the AIIM survey, 34% had a Twitter account.

Source: AIIM

A recent independent study conducted by Nucleus Research reports approximately 1.5% of enterprise productivity is lost due to employees accessing Facebook in the workplace. The study shows that 77% of company employees have a Facebook account and nearly half of all workers access Facebook on company time.

One in 33 employees say they only access Facebook from the office and some employees admit to using Facebook for several hours per work day.

“If your profitability is say two percent, this could be the difference between staying open or closing shop,” says Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research for Nucleus Research.

I am curious to know if they asked employees what else they would be doing to kill time in the absence of Facebook. Rubberband ball anyone?

Excuse me while I update my Facebook status.

Source: Nucleus Research