Facebook has over 250 million members, Twitter has more than 75 million micro blogs and over 60 million people are signed up to LinkedIn - the popularity of social media is growing every day. Even Irish SMEs are using social media to reach out to potential customers. (Irish SMEs using social media). But have companies stopped to consider what effect it could have closer to home- in the relationship between the employee and the organisation?

For any internal communicator, a communications tool that can cover upward, downward and lateral communication in real time for virtually no cost, other than time and effort, sounds like manna from heaven.However, the uptake of social media tools for internal communications purposes has been patchy, to say the least.It is no surprise that high tech companies have been the first and most ardent embracers of social media technology.