Social Networking is one aspect of the Societal Web, and an important one.
This article (Want vs. Need for Social Media, by Jay Deragon - here >) about how businesses can use various Social Networking sites is insightful, and a useful prompt for businesses not sure where to act, nor the tools to use for the impact that they seek.
The analogy that doing this stuff without reference to needs is like "... playing Tennis by watching the scoreboard. How you play is How you score, scoring does not happen unless you play a good game" and I think that applies to all Social Networking. It is really important to do what you do in a strategic, focused, way, if you want to get the results to meet those needs. Recognising that, depending on need, your approach and strategy may need to be very different is important too, that's clarified well in the article by looking at the needs of different departments in the business.
One aspect of the Societal Web is that there is much that we don't yet know and more that we don't understand, or at least understand how to make the effort we apply work. In a truly Societal Web though there is both the knowledge, the means of understanding it, and the people to apply it to help you. The challenge, then, is not inventing the wheel, but finding the wheelwright. We'll return to this point in the future I'm sure.
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