To help manage its social networking, the museum's IT and marketing departments share an employee who reports to both.

But Peltzman said it isn't easy to show how social networking generates money. Using social media for direct funding efforts can undermine it, he argues.

That also makes it difficult to tell the business exactly how much value is delivered by social media. But he believes that in time, analytical tools will arrive that can show how social media does contribute.

Patrick Thibodeau covers SaaS and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .