Cameran Evans, Data Scientist at Socialcast by VMware explained the measurable benefits to this solution. “It comes from data,” Cameran said, “showing how much faster employees get answers to their questions. Solutions that would have taken weeks or months are coming through in hours because someone has the info needed.”

Measuring this type of social interaction in the workplace can actually tie back directly to a company’s earnings. Organizations can look at their time between a lead to a sale or view the percent of conversations across internal groups: Marketing vs. sales vs. HR, for example.

But the new social revolution inside enterprises is only just beginning, said David Gutelius, the Chief Social Scientist at Jive Software. Metrics on time-based efforts are a start, but in the future we can “[G]o beyond the data and tie it to other processes: Using big data stacks in new ways, for example.”

We might be thinking that there’s limited benefit to social networks, considering many topics are related to pop culture, news events and other consumer-based themes, but social tools can be very powerful. Not only can they bust down silos in the enterprise, they can give corporate leaders a more insightful view of how work actually gets done.

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