The Role of Social Media at the workplace

With the advent of the internet, revolution occurred on every facet of the human life. The business world was definitely one of the most affected areas. Talking of the internet, social media is probably the most used part of the internet. With that in mind, its role at the workplace has tremendously improved for the past few years.

Social media and advertising.

Of all the benefits of social media, its role as an advertising and marketing tool is definitely the top on the list. Social media marketing is a form of internet marketing that uses the various social media networks to enable marketing communication and achieve branding goals. This kind of marketing involves sharing of videos, content and images aimed at marketing a product, service or brand(Erkan, Birol, 2011).

Social media relies on human interaction hence its success as a marketing tool. With the right kind of strategy, it is not surprising to see a brand becoming viral all over the world. Although many business were reluctant to embrace social media at the workplace as a marketing tool, its prowess in marketing cannot be overstated.

Social media increases the recognition of a brand in ways that were not possible before. For a business, every opportunity to increase its popularity is very valuable. Social media not only gives a company this opportunity, it makes it easy and offers accessibility to a monumental amount of new and existing customers.

Studies have shown that companies that invest heavily in social media marketing enjoy brand loyalty from their customers. The constant feeding of the customers with the benefits of the brand might be the reason behind this.

Social media and recruiting employees

Employees are the most important part of a business. They run the company, and without them, a business will inevitably go to its knees. That stated, recruitment is a continuous process in a company. Long gone are the days when a company had to place adverts about a position, receive innumerable applications, sieve out the applications and conduct lengthy interviews just to feel one position. Although this process is not completely unnecessary, there is an easier way of getting employees to fill a position(Joos, 2008).

The process of recruiting employees has received a transformation, thanks to the innumerable profiles and resumes on social networks, with particular reference to LinkedIn. The power of this tool as a recruiting tool is just unmistakable. Any recruiter who is looking for a source of employees with a large database of both passive and active prospects, LinkedIn stands at the top. Its superiority goes beyond the large database. LinkedIn has accurate and consistent profiles and enables recruiter to perform a phenomenal research while looking for talent. This kind of setup beats the conventional method of looking for employees. It is cheap and efficient.

The unique feature of LinkedIn and essentially the most important one for a recruiter is the opportunity to perform a through talent management research. For instance, the one and only database that shows which firm are hiring and the individuals hired in that particular firm is LinkedIn. Additionally, this research enables an employer to measure the turnover in a certain company and find out which firm are those people moving to. Another capability of this research is that it helps a recruiter discover if the number of prospects in a certain job field is increasing or decreasing. It can be stated boldly that for strategic recruitment, retention patterns and internal movements, no other tool beats LinkedIn.

Before recruiting an individual, it is imperative to conduct a background check on them. This is particularly important to ensure that only the top talented individuals get into the company. Apart from recruiting, LinkedIn is a commonly used reference tool to get a quick snapshot of a prospect. It is possible to peek at a stranger who contacted the human resource department. Conducting a 360° thorough survey on an individual before hiring them is possible after seeking and getting permission.

Social media as an engagement tool at the workplace

It is true that networking and communication is one of the vital necessities for a business. From communication of managerial instructions to giving of reports about customers in the field, communication is in some way the lifeline of a business.

Despite the fact that innumerable organizations and businesses were reluctant to take up social media as a communication tool, there is an enormous untapped power in social media as an engagement tool. Top-notch companies that use social media to engage their employees and customers can attest this.

First, a more engaged workforce is more productive. A company’s internal Facebook page can do magic to employees. The constant interaction helps employees know each other and consequently escalating camaraderie. This directly translates to teamwork, something that may not have existed in a company before (Silva-Ford, 2015).

With the hot debate that raged the use of social media at the workplace. Many companies resorted to research as a way of getting the truth. After a bold research on employees that use social media at the workplace, a large percent of them were found to be collaborative, creative and hence more productive. This may stem from the fact that they stay in contact with a wide variety of customers for longer.

In our socially connected world, customer to employee engagement can take place anywhere. Customers are the reason why a company is in existence, engaging with them is key to the growth of a business. Social media hands a company’s customer service, sales, marketing and management teams a great capability to engage with customers. In fact, the amount of insight obtained on how people feel about a brand from customer, fans and critics is not achievable in any other way.

With the social networks being accessible to both customers and employees, it is possible for a company’s team to surface complaints or requests raised by online customers. These ideas can be the driving force behind solution of problems, better customer satisfaction and adaptation to new customer needs.

Advantages of using social media at the workplace

The efficient manner in which information is disseminated across different social is basically the reason behind the success of social media. Nevertheless, there are still people who have not accepted that a modern business cannot do without social media. Below are some of the benefits of social media:

1. Cost effectiveness-Compared to traditional marketing, social media is an excellent way to escalate the exposure of a brand. Most importantly, the cost is ten folds lower than the conventional way of marketing. A good and well strategized marketing plan on widely used social networks like Twitter and Facebook, can simply explode the presence and popularity of a brand.
2. Improves customer services- The two way communication between customers and the human resource team on social media is unparalleled. Information gets to customers in a timely and quick fashion. Insights that will go into improvements and changes on the company as a whole are usually a message a way, and there are volumes and tons of them.
3. Gives a company a competitive advantage- With better marketing strategies, improved networking and employee productivity, a company’s sales inevitably sky rockets.
4. It is a powerful recruiting tool.

Disadvantages of using social media at the workplace

With the power and possibilities that social media offers, it also comes with risks. Nothing in the human world has ever achieved perfection and social media is not and exception. First, since fans and followers of a business have the freedom to post anything, a business is at a very high risk of negative publicity. Even though a quick response the damaging effects of negative effects, this comments are injurious.

Hackers are another threat always looming on social media. It is no longer surprising to hear a company’s page has been attacked and false but sensitive information has been posted and gone viral on the page. Innumerable large and respected companies have fallen victim of hackers. Other possible disadvantages of social media at the workplace:

• There is a risk of potential negative comments about the company from employees or legal consequences arising from employees viewing objectionable content on this site.
• Without a good policy, there may be loss of productivity is employees spend their time reading unnecessary content or updating profiles.

Recommendations

Following the above analysis, social media is a wholesome communication tool for the workplace but as everything else, it has shortcomings. Can a business get around these shortcomings to get the best out of social media? The greatest worry about employers is the risk of employees using social networks for their own personal interest while sidelining the necessary tasks. Developing a use policy will solve this issue. The policy should:

• Define social media with reference to the organization so that employees understand their limits.
• Communicate the importance of both the social networks and the policy.
• Provide a platform for employee education on the use of social media.
• Enumerate any legal consequences of not going by the law.
• Explain the importance of confidentiality when communicating certain types information on the sites.
• Provide guidelines on how to use social networks outside the company.
• List examples of policy violations.
• Outline the implications of not gong by the policy.

Conclusion

It is important to note that social media is not an all-inclusive communication tool for a business. Although a company should aggressively use social media in communication, it should just be complimentary to other communication tools. Additionally, setting up profiles on multiple social networks is easy but they will not yield any fruits if a great deal of time and effort are not invested. On the contrary, leaving a Facebook or Twitter account unattended leaves bad taste in the mouth of customers. Before fully plunging into social media communication, it is important that a business looks at its resources and thereafter develop a strategy that will work for them. All said and done, the role of social media at the workplace is hard to dispute.

References

Dina, Y. Regulating Social Media Use in the Workplace. SSRN Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1948854

Garon, J. Social Media in the Workplace From Constitutional to Intellectual Property Rights. SSRN Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2348779

Joos, J. (2008). Social media: New frontiers in hiring and recruiting. Employ. Relat. Today, 35(1), 51-59. doi:10.1002/ert.20188

Randolph, S. (2012). Using Social Media and Networking in Health Care. Workplace Health & Safety,60(1), 44-44. doi:10.3928/21650799-20111227-14

Silva-Ford, L. (2015). Know how social media can help you connect with adults. Recruiting & Retaining Adult Learners, 17(6), 7-7. doi:10.1002/nsr.30031

An Examination of the Factors Influencing Consumers’ Attitudes Towards Social Media Marketing
Erkan Akar, Birol Topçu
Journal: Journal of Internet Commerce 2011
DOI: 10.1080/15332861.2011.558456