Enterprises are beginning to adopt social networking applications. They’re doing it for the same reasons millions of consumers do: because they offer a fast, easy-to-use way to keep in touch, organize activities and share ideas.

However, businesses and IT executives are wary, and for good reason. Whether they like it or not, employees are signing up for these tools regardless of whether it’s company policy or not. Younger employees joining the work force have grown up with social networking technologies, and businesses are being forced to play catch-up.

Because of this, there are three major concerns that are keeping IT up at night. First, consumer applications can cut into employee productivity for hours at a time. Second, social networking sites can become vectors for viruses, hacker attacks and phishing. Finally, social networking image, audio and video traffic steal bandwidth from business uses.

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