SILVER SPRING, MD -- (Marketwire) -- 11/27/12 -- A new report from AIIM, the global community of information professionals, advises IT professionals, compliance teams, and records managers to embed internal and external social channels into their core processes for business benefit. In its latest Industry Watch report, "Social in the Flow -- transforming processes and sharing knowledge," AIIM finds that the majority of companies consider integration of social technologies with business processes to be important, although only 37 percent of respondents expect social to be integrated across the business within the next two years.

Organizations -- especially regulatory and government agencies -- are encouraged by AIIM to incorporate closer integration of social tools and techniques into the core business processes for project coordination, customer support and staff communication. One positive note, compared to past reports, is the number of organizations actively discouraging use of social technologies at work has dropped to 19 percent, although it remains at 44 percent for Government to Business (G2B) organizations. A quarter of all organizations surveyed have no official policy, and within the 50 percent who do actively encourage use of social tools at work, more than half have no guidelines on their acceptable business use. Sixty-four percent provide no way for employees to integrate social technologies into their business processes.

"When it comes to reaping the business benefits of social media, you need to think how it can help within a given business process," said Doug Miles, director of market intelligence at AIIM. "Nearly half of organizations do not have any official strategies for social content creation and collaboration which represents missed opportunities for faster response and better knowledge-sharing in product development, recruitment, help desk, employee relations and project management."

AIIM recommends information professionals help lead the way to the integration of social technologies while there is still time. Within two years, 81 percent of all organizations plan to have social tools and technologies in regular use across the business. Areas at the top of the priority list for integration include customer support (59 percent) and marketing (58 percent). The most popular internal social application is staff communication with more than half planning to implement a company notice board/forum in the next year. Other social integration priorities in the next year include collaborative document authoring (51 percent), event promotion (50 percent), brand management (49 percent) and customer feedback (44 percent).

Overall, the report concludes that social technology adoption within enterprises is strong, but the integration of social into business processes is still in its infancy. AIIM advises IT departments, legal and compliance teams and records managers to work with business management to:

• Consider all internal and external social channels and don't confine analysis to only marketing or corporate communications when defining social relevancy to the business.
• Map out organizational responsibilities for social interaction.
• Create guidelines and policies that tie the social workflow to business value and clearly state expected and acceptable contributions and ramifications of compliance.
• Explore deeper integration of social technologies into enterprise processes from the perspective of potential business benefit, technical and cultural impact, scalability, cost of integration and time to deploy.

The full report, "Social in the Flow -- transforming processes and sharing knowledge" can be downloaded from the AIIM website at www.aiim.org/social-processes. The research was underwritten by BroadVision, Hype Innovation, IBM, Igloo Software, tibbr and Workshare.

About AIIM
AIIM has been an advocate and supporter of information professionals for nearly 70 years. The association's mission is to ensure that information professionals understand the current and future challenges of managing information assets in an era of social, mobile, cloud and big data. Founded in 1943, AIIM builds on a strong heritage of research and member service. Today, AIIM is a global, non-profit organization that provides independent research, education and certification programs to information professionals. AIIM represents the entire information management community, with programs and content for practitioners, technology suppliers, integrators and consultants. www.aiim.org

About BroadVision, Inc.
Clearvale by BroadVision is the social network for business, where transparency and accountability mean real works gets done. It enables businesses to connect and engage with employees, partners, and customers; share anytime, anywhere, and on any device; and track business processes, sources of knowledge, and network adoption. www.clearvale.com

About HYPE Innovation
HYPE Innovation is a global leader in end-to-end Innovation Management software. HYPE's powerful platform allows organizations to engage thousands of employees in idea generation and collaborative problem solving. Our client community includes global companies such as GE, P&G, Bombardier, Nokia-Siemens, Daimler, Airbus, General Mills, Saudi Aramco, Bechtel, and Deutsche Telekom. www.hypeinnovation.com

About IBM ECM
IBM Enterprise Content Management solutions enable the world's top companies to make better decisions, faster. As a market leader in content, process and compliance software, IBM ECM delivers a broad set of mission-critical solutions that help solve today's most difficult business challenges: managing unstructured content, optimizing business processes and helping satisfy complex compliance requirements through an integrated information infrastructure. www.ibm.com/software/ecm

About Igloo Software
Igloo is a modern intranet -- delivered securely in the cloud. For growing organizations, it is the fastest way to enable communication and collaboration across borders and boundaries. That is why world-class companies, such as Harry Winston, Kimberly-Clark, Ipswitch and the ATP World Tour, choose Igloo. Learn more at igloosoftware.com.

About tibbr
tibbr connects people, applications and data in context and, in an entirely personal way. Launched in January 2011, tibbr brings together what matters -- to individuals or groups -- to get work done better, faster. tibbr can be delivered on premise or in the cloud, getting all your employees started within days. www.tibbr.com

About Workshare Ltd
Workshare is a leading provider of secure enterprise collaboration applications that allows individuals to easily create, share and manage high-value content anywhere, on any device. More than 1.8 million professionals in 70 counties use Workshare's award-winning desktop, mobile, tablet, and web applications. www.workshare.com