I came across some great research into Social Networks carried out by Dynamic Markets on behalf of AT&T. They surveyed over 2,500 people from a variety of industries (from commissioning steel buildings to selling automated OS recovery packages) in 5 countries and here are some findings that they published:

Some things uncovered in the study include:

• 65% of employees surveyed say that social networking sites have made them and/or their colleagues more efficient
• 63% say they have enabled them and their colleagues to achieve things that would not otherwise have been possible
• 46% say they have sparked ideas and creativity for them personally
• External collaboration sites on the web and internal blogging sites (both 11%)

The Top 5 social networking tools being used as part of everyday working life are:

1. Companies’ own collaboration sites on intranets (39%)
2. Internal forums within the company (20%)
3. Company-produced video material shared on intranets (16%)
4. Online social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook (15%)