Why aren’t execs satisfied with social intranets?

Social intranets are the wave of the future, right? Then why aren’t more executives happy with them?

According to a recent survey from Prescient Digital Media, only 28 percent of executives whose companies have social intranets say the functionality is “good” or “very good.” About 35 percent called it “poor” or “very poor.” The rest fell into “satisfactory.”

Satisfaction didn’t run much higher among employees. Only 33 percent viewed their social intranets as “good” or “very good,” while 26 percent said it was “poor” or “very poor.”

So are social intranets just not what they’re cracked up to be? It’s a little more complicated than that, Chris Chambers, vice president of client development for Prescient, told the hosts of this month’s IBF Live program.

Part of the problem is that 38 percent of companies have spent $10,000 or less to implement social intranets. “You get what you pay for,” Chambers said. But that doesn’t mean companies shouldn’t be trying to implement social intranets, he said.