In an interview with Ed Moran, director of product innovation at Deloitte, IT Business Edge's Ann All discusses how companies use online communities and social media, a dialogue that reveals that more companies are assigning full-time resources to social networkingand businesses plan to maintain or increase investment in their communities. Moran, one of the authors of the second annual "Tribalization of Business," survey, which indicates the continued maturation of the enterprise’s use of communities and social media, says that more and more companies are starting to listen to what is taking place on social networks even if they aren't developing their own communities.

Moran told her:

If you’re dealing with a corporate culture internally, sometimes promoting awareness among the right people that your company is being talked about helps communities become more of a need to do instead of a nice to have.

Though are still a lot of issues about social media for companies, including setting policies and figuring out return on investment in social media, this survey confirms that they understand the importance of participating, at least on some level, in the social networking.

Some resources in the Knowledge Network address how best to set a social-media policy, how to get ROI from Twitter or Facebook and how to become a thought leader in your industry by using social networks.

“Twitterville” Excerpt

Sample Social-Networking Policy

"Twitter for Dummies" Excerpt