Social networking success requires solid plans

"My biggest piece of advice is to make sure social media is grounded in the challenges of your business. It's different for each business," said Shawn Dahlen Jr., social media program manager at Lockheed Martin, during a presentation.

Lockheed has created a platform called Unity, which is based on Microsoft SharePoint. But the choice of technology was more pragmatic than anything else, since SharePoint was already a mainstay in Lockheed's IT environment.

The platform "provided an evolutionary path" from a document-centric culture to one that embraces wikis and blogs, Dahlen said.

A grassroots approach worked for Lockheed when it came time to roll out Unity.

Initially, the company did little more "than put up some posters" to attract the attention of workers in the company's information systems and global services division, Dahlen said.