Companies need to lift restrictions on the use of social media and be proactive in developing policies to encourage its use for business benefit.
That was the message at Insider's Social Networking for Business breakfast, which was held at MOSI in Manchester.
Mark Williams, managing director of ETN LinkedIn Training, told the audience social media can be a distraction, but it can also be used to enhance a business if used in the right way.
"As a company, if you can understand each one of these channels, how they work and where the audiences are, then it will be easier for your staff to use it in the right way," he said.
"We can ban these things on work PCs but in reality people will just start using their phones to access social networks. It’s better to embrace, educate and then use it in a positive way."
Between the audience and the panel, it was clear that concerns remain among corporates about the effective use of social media for business, the distraction it could cause staff and the potential security of a brand.
Andy Poole, associate director at public relations firm Weber Shandwick, said it was important for businesses to develop a standard of best practice for the use of social media in an organisation.
He also suggested implementing a training programme for only a few staff in order to offer a degree of control about what was being written for public consumption.
The panel agreed there was still a lot of noise around the use of social media and it was important for businesses to understand more about how Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook actually worked, before jumping in head first.
A recent survey from workspace provider Regus showed that nearly half (49 per cent) of companies in Manchester are successfully winning new customers through social networking activity, compared to an average of 41 per cent across the UK.