Challenges and Opportunities for Organisations Using Social Media - Coursework Example

A Discussion On Challenges And Opportunities For Organisations Using Social Media Introduction Technology is arguably the trademark of today’s generation. Just like there was the Ice Age and the Stone Age, today, we have the technology age. Indeed, technological tools are the latest tools along the line of man’s evolutionary process. In fact, much of today’s activities are more, rather than less, likely to become paralyzed in the event that technology systems were to fail, indicating an increasing reliance on technology systems. One of the most pervasive classes of technology is information technology. This class of technology pervades all of our activities as human beings. It has taken center stage and today, the use of modern communication devices has become more of a necessity rather than a luxury. Information technology has many facets. Additionally, it has facilitated a change in the manner in which communication is carried out. Over the past decade, the onset of social media, also referred to as new media, has ushered in a new era in information technology. Social media has had a profound impact on the manner in which individuals and organizations interact. This new media has affected the status quo in a variety of way. From traditional media to education and even business, the emergence of new media has revolutionized how activities are carried out across these fields. The role of social media in altering the status quo is critically assessed in the sections that follow. The nature of social media interaction is investigated, as well as the challenges and opportunities for organizations. The nature of social media Social media refers to a collection of software tools, which are designed to facilitate social networking online and sharing of knowledge (Baxter, 2015). Social media is based on Web 2.0 technologies, an advancement from Web 1.0 technologies. The latter type of technology, Web 1.0, was a static type of technology designed for the relay of information with no avenue for the reception of feedback. Thus, its audience had no capacity to react to what it read. However, with social media, individuals can respond to content they read online. Moreover, they can also generate their content, whichis then broadcast to other users.Today, the pervasiveness of social media has been exacerbated by the prevalence of Smartphone possession and use. According to Hennig-Thurau, et al., (2010) users can carry out whatever activities they intend to undertake on their smartphones. This is as opposed to traditionally where individuals had to have a desktop in order to gain web access. The social media is a computer-mediated tool that allows individuals to create, share and exchange information and ideas. Videos and pictures are also shared in virtual communities and networks on social media. From the studies of Kabani (2010), the social media is defined as a group of internet based applications built on the technological and ideological functions of Web 2.0 which allows the creation as well as exchange of user-generated content. Facebook, Qzone and Google + are the most popular social media sites according to the report of Pew Research Center (2014). While the growth of Facebook has slowed, its level of user engagement has increased. Other platforms such as Pinterest and Twitter recorded significant increases of users in the past years. Information overload Information overload is a phenomenon arising from the excess of information that is available online. The availability of excess information began with the proliferation of printed matter due to the emergence of the typewriter (Hemp, 2009). With the advances in technology and the emergence of internet technology, the phenomenon has further been intensified. Current information explosion data indicates that by 2020, information will double every 73 days. Research data reveals that information overload has profound adverse effects on personal well-being, as well as on innovation, decision-making and productivity. Some of the personal well-being problems that have been associated with information overload include e-mail apnea and a reduction in intelligence (Hemp, 2009). Moreover, the always-available information also has a tendency to blur the boundaries between work and home leading to unprecedented impacts on individual’s personal lives. Infobesity& info junk food Information overload is closely tied to what is referred to as infobesity, which is a phenomenon where information is consumed without much regard for its quality (Lee, 2008). Such information, which is of no value to the individual, is what is referred to as info junk food. The terms are coined such that their connotative expression resembles the act of fast-food consumption.Infobesity leads to the ignorance of relevant and useful information due to the excess of available information which they are incapable of handling (Beckers, 2014).the problem is resolved through a process of satisficing, whereby individuals take up just the right amount of information that they need, albeit it may not be the best available information. Internal use of social media Social media is increasingly becoming a part of organizations’ communication portfolio. According to Baxter, (2015) organizations that have modified their working practices to accommodate Web 2.0 technology utilization in the workplace are referred to as Enterprise 2.0 organizations. Within such organizations, social media is used for social learning purposes, whereby employees share knowledge and communicate at work.One such organization is IBM, where employees use social networking tools internally, to connect with coworkers, for projects, and to advance their career objectives (DiMicco et al., 2008). The use of such tools at IBM includes internal blogging, social bookmarking and people tagging through Dogear (Brzozowski, 2009). Moreover, IBM has its internal social networking site, referred to as Social Blue. Through this tool, employees can access information about fellow workmates (Treem & Leonardi, 2012). Baxter (2015) indicates that blogs, wikis and discussion forums are the three main social media tools that have gained acceptance amongst organizations for purposes of knowledge sharing. At IBM, using the social media internally is all about losing control. The company does not have a corporate blog or Twitter ID. This is because the company wants the IBMers to be the aggregate corporate blog or Twitter ID. The company is presented online the way it has always been with the employees first. The shaping of the brand is largely shaped by the interactions that it has with its customers. Thousands of IBMers are thus the voice of the 14th company on the Fortune 500 list. The decentralization of social media, a milestone in the company’s history, is an approach that has been driving unprecedented innovation and collaboration. Internally, employees at IBM talk to each other and to the public without any intervention. With the diverse and distributed culture at IBM, collaboration and sharing among employees makes great business sense. According to Hibbard (2010), the company is a knowledge based entity which hits on the expertise of employees. Blogs are essentially websites, which are periodically updated, with the most recent information appearing at the top of the page (Scott, 2007). Blogs are useful within organizations for knowledge sharing purposes. Organizations such as IBM have realized the usefulness of blogs for purposes of internal knowledge sharing and employee communicationSheehan, B. (2010). In this regard, there are several types of blogs such as employee blogs, promotional blogs, executive blogs and promotional blogs (Lee, Park, & Hwang, 2008). With wikis, individuals participate collaboratively in the creation of a website, whereby such websites are editable. They are particularly useful for projects, which involve several individuals who need to share information. According to Baxter (2015), they are also for purposes of cataloging and recording facts that are related to processes and working procedures. Finally, online forums are discussion forums through which users can post messages, which others can then read and respond. In organizations, they are useful in supporting teamwork whereby participants can create and share knowledge through discussion threads and posts. Moreover, they are also useful in allowing employees to access quick responses to job-related difficulties. Organizations also make use of microblogging platforms to share knowledge and disseminate information. For organizations, microblogging sites such as Twitter can be used to establish online communities through which employees can update one another on relevant issues (Baxter, 2015). A more convenient microblogging tool would be Yammer, which unlike Twitter - which is public and open -, is installed behind an organization’s firewall, thereby facilitating private exchanges. External use Organizations can use social media in a number of ways, to interact with external stakeholders. For business units, social media avails a platform through which they can interact with their consumers. Through this interaction, such organizations can obtain information about their customers’ needs, collect customer complaints and provide solutions. Social media avails multifarious ways through which organizations can reach consumers. This can be particularly useful for customer relationship management purposes, whereby knowledge of individual customers is used to create individualized marketing practices (Hennig-Thurau, et al., 2010). By collecting information about consumers’ needs, organizations can generate products that are capable of meeting the particular needs of the customer. In this process, referred to as co-creation, traditional consumers generate the exchange value that is then enjoyed by the corporation (Humphreys & Grayson, 2008). According to Hoyer et al., (2010) consumers are not only able, but they are also willing to provide ideas for new goods or businesses and also to improve the existing ones. Social media facilitates this exchange of ideas between the organization and its target consumers. This can be beneficial to businesses, by increasing the likelihood of new product success (Hoyer, et al., 2010).Organizations should, therefore, endeavor to interact with consumers in order to develop mutually beneficial products. When it comes to dealing with customer complaints, organizations can easily respond through social media platforms. Apart from these organization-driven benefits, social media may also benefit organizations indirectly. For example, when it comes to marketing, (Hennig-Thurau, et al., 2010)indicate that consumers tend to share their enthusiasm about particular products and brands through social media platforms and social networking sites. This is beneficial for organizations since such word-of-mouth tends to reach a greater number of individuals. However, it may also be detrimental since consumers will also express their displeasure with a product or service with a similar audience and similar impact. This is explicated by research data on consumer reactions to online reviews. Statistical findings indicate that many consumers rely on online reviews from other consumers to make decisions about business institutions. Gesenhues (2013) finds that buying reviews affect consumers buying decisions, with 67 % of respondents reporting that they read online reviews. In particular, positive reviews affect 90% of buying decisions; while in the case of negative reviews affect 86%. Another indirect benefit is that consumers readily assist fellow consumers with product-related problems. For organizations, what this means is that they incur reduced service costs and experience an increase in quality (Mathwick, Wiertz, and De Ruyter 2008). Evidently, there are many opportunities for organizations using social media, with a host of accompanying benefits. Through the Smarter Planet, a few business incubators, smart transportation systems and intelligent utility systems as well as electronic health records are part of the IBM movement. The Smarter Planet initiative uses IBM’s problem solving and computer power in tackling issues such as natural disasters and rush-hour traffic. Hibbard (2010) further cited that there are several communities online that had congregated long before IBM and were talking about the said areas of using computer power to solve daily issues and challenges. IBM thus focusses on understanding those communities through engaging several groups of individuals on social media to establish optimum efficiency for the Smarter Planet movement. Challenges The main challenge of social media marketing is the availability of many social media platforms and tools. This can make it challenging for companies to decide where to begin when venturing into social media marketing (Safko, 2013). For a small business the primary issue is resources. If the small business does not have an individual who will manage its social media campaign, then it is likely that the time and resources of the entrepreneur will be drained. This challenge is a potential distraction from the core business of the company and can impact the company negatively. Even though social media provides a company the chance of building customer loyalty and brand awareness, there also exists the danger of participating in public forums of conversation. A company needs to have clear ideas and strategies of how it will handle negative publicity about its business. By posting items on the social media, a company needs to ensure that these items present a professional image to the world. In addition, the conversations and interaction with people on social media by a company needs to be professional. It is a fact that with the web culture and social media use richer customer experiences exist. However, there is the issue of how businesses manage the new technologies such as social media platforms and tools. There thus exists a set of legal implications regarding the use of social media by companies. The use of social media by companies is responsible for raising customer expectations. Customers now expect immediacy in online interactions (Bryfonski, 2012). The expectation by customers is that content on social media is regularly updated, and the comments they make are quickly replied. With such expectations, companies are burdened with new demands on how they manage their social media and online content. Opportunities Social media marketing which is the process of gaining website traffic through social media websites is an avenue that presents limitless marketing opportunities for companies (Safko& Brake, 2009). Through social media marketing, programs are usually centered on the efforts of creating content which attracts the attention of readers and encourages them to share the same across the social media platforms with other users who are usually friends and acquaintances IBM, for instance, through the social media analytics aims at the integration of traditional and new media efforts into a coordinated and effective marketing effort. The company is thus dedicated to exploiting social media use by tapping into social media use and improving understanding and awareness of customers at an aggregate and individual level. The efforts by IBM in social media marketing include the creation of attributes for a consumer’s brand affinity, disposition, and product sentiment. In addition, by using social media, companies such as IBM have been able to leverage customer insight so that the insights better match customers to the marketing messages and offers across outbound and inbound marketing campaigns. Execution of campaigns across all social media channels is also an opportunity that social media offers to businesses. IBM has used this in both traditional channels which are informed by social sharing and social insights and also real-time targeting of social media applications and users. The present ever-evolving and emerging social media platforms offers companies’ dynamic ways of extending brand reach and encourage customer loyalty. The adoption of social media use by consumers is pervasive according to Powell, et al., (2011). Marketers can pursue customers and new markets by the mere integration of social media into their marketing mix. Every post that a firm makes on the social media is an opportunity to convert customers. When a company has built following, it will simultaneously have access to recent customers, new and old customers and can interact with all groups simultaneously. With every image, blog or video posted on social media a reaction results. With every reaction, there is the probability of a site visit and ultimately a conversation. Even though a company may have low click-through rates, the sheer number of opportunities on social media is significant. What is more, the social media is responsible for sparking higher conversion rates in a number of distinct ways. The most distinct way, is perhaps, the humanization element; the fact that as brands interact on social media platforms eventually make them humanized. In the social media avenues, brands can act the way people do, and this is pertinent because individuals like doing business with other individuals and not with other companies. In addition, a study showed that the social media has a 100 percent lead-to-close rate which is higher than outbound marketing. Moreover, followers of social media have the habit of improving credibility and trust in a brand which represents social proof. By simply building an audience on social media, a company can improve the conversion rates of its existing traffic. According to Dewing, Canada, & Canada (2010), 84 percent of marketers found that six hours of effort on a weekly basis was enough to increase traffic. Six hours is not a significant investment for channels such as social media. If a company can utilize an hour a day in the development of social media content, significant results will be observed. The cost of advertising in social media is significantly lower than the cost of advertising on other avenues. Paid adverts on Twitter and Facebook are relatively cheaper. A company should start small when embracing social media marketing and increase its budget correspondingly over time. Lastly, social media marketing and platforms are responsible for better search engine results. Search engine optimization is the best way of capturing relevant traffic from search engines. Regular updating of one’s blog is not enough to ensure optimized Meta descriptions, title tags and the distribution of links that point back to one’s website (Qualman, 2009). Yahoo and other search engines such as Google calculate their rankings using the presence of social media. This is a significant factor as most of the strongest brands on the market utilize social media as a platform for marketing. Frequent activity on social media acts as a brand signal to search engines and other websites. It shows that a company’s brand is credible, legitimate and trustworthy. Further Challenges and opportunities Social media and other such new media have upset the prevailing status quo in a number of different ways. They have changed the way in which individuals interact with organizations. However, they have also presented industries with new avenues through which to conduct their affairs. For instance, new media have had a large impact on the traditional media. The development of the new media has presented conventional media with a new host of opportunities as well as challenges (Salman, et al., 2011). The internet poses the largest challenge, and Berman et al. (2007) contend that internet successes such as YouTube, together with their growth rates, are the envy of many entertainment establishments including broadcast TV. Berman et al., (2007) indicate that YouTube attracts 100 million views daily, which is equivalent to the viewership of 15 of the most viewed British primetime shows. This simple statistic explicates the magnitude of the growth of new media, relative to the capacities of conventional media. In the non-profit sector, social media tools are a valuable asset for public relations purposes (Curtis, et al., 2010). They are particularly useful for those organizations with public relations departments. Conclusion The Social media is increasingly becoming a part of organizations’ communication portfolio. Organizations that have modified their working practices to accommodate Web 2.0 technology utilization in the workplace are referred to as Enterprise 2.0 organizations.Organizations can use social media in a number of ways to interact with external stakeholders. For business units, social media avails a platform through which they can interact with their consumers. Through this interaction, such organizations can obtain information about their customers’ needs, collect customer complaints and provide solutions. Social media avails multifarious ways through which organizations can reach consumers.The main challenge of social media marketing is the availability of many social media platforms and tools. This can make it challenging for companies to decide where to begin when venturing into social media marketing. For a small business the primary issue is resources. In general, the social media age is responsible for availing endless opportunities to business, but with a number of challenges like any other technologies. References Baxter, G. (2015). Social Media in Organizations. The International Encyclopedia of Digital Communication and Society. Beckers, D. K. (2014). Information waste on the World Wide Web: combating the clutter. Berman, S. J., Abraham, S. P., Battino, B. P., Shipnuck, L., &Neus, A. (2007). New business models for the new media world. Strategy &Leadership, 35 (4), 23-30. Brzozowski, M. J. (2009). 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