The market research firm advised using a combination of organisational network analysis to look at individuals' role in relationships, value network analysis to examine the economic value of exchanges and influence analysis to calculate the authority actions have.
Carol Rozwell, vice-president and analyst at Gartner, commented that the goal for business leaders should be to create a pattern-based strategy, which will allow them to examine opportunities and disruptions within a social network.
She said: "Work is routinely conducted among employees, business partners and customers without a clear understanding of the positions that people play in the social network."
Ms Rozwell also posited that it can be useful to quantify these values.
This week, Gartner predicted that IT firms may begin to use private cloud computing in the next few years, but it will be longer before they adopt public cloud technology.
