Social media tools are beginning to find favour in internal communications teams, according to a survey run in conjunction with the monthly CiB ezine.

Seventy three per-cent of respondents said they were now using some form of social media.

Typical uses included blogs and user forums, although Twitter and video is beginning to find favour, especially in PR and external comms campaigns.

One respondent said that they post campaign videos on YouTube, and share news on Twitter. Twitter was also used as a recruitment tool, with tweets aimed at students by one organisation.

Another said: “On one YouTube video alone we had 670,000 views and 128 comments. We have gained free PR all over the world, won a number of prestigious international awards and achieved millions of views for our clients.”

The European Patent Office uses a weekly blog written by the company president and forums to engage staff to stimulate debate about new projects or strategic issues.

It also uses wikis for the technical teams to share knowledge and uses podcasting, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube to promote the EPO, both externally and to recruit new staff.

LinkedIn was also mentioned as a useful tool by quite a few respondents, often as a recruitment tool. One company said that they had experimented with Twitter, but had discontinued its use after the trial period.

But it wasn't all plain sailing – one respondent said that all social media sites were blocked by the company's IT department.

Another said that age was an issue: “The problem we have is that our average employee is a 46 year-old man and I'm not convinced that these tools are something that the majority of the workforce would a) be familiar with or b) be comfortable using.

“It's going to take time to get people comfortable using social media tools”

But as one respondent said: “Blogging, tweeting and linking in helps me engage in the ongoing corporate communication dialogue, often in real-time.

“Communication is now an involving collaborative process - far removed from the old days of corporate publishing.”

Those not using social media tools cited “budget constraints, lack of technical ability/support and a lack of understanding” as the main reasons for not using them.