Use of Social Media by Organisations and Employees

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Requirement

What managing people issues are raised by the increasing use of social media by organisations and employees? How are organisations and employees managing these? 

INTRODUCTION

According to Merriam Webster, the social media is defined as the “forms of electronic communication, like websites for the social networking and also microblogging by which the users can create the online communities for sharing the information, ideas along with personal messages and other content, like video communication (Anderson, 2017). A single definition is not enough for the social media. As per Trottier and Fuchs (2015), social media can be defined as the sociality at the focal point which has three main forms like, i) co-operation, ii) cognition and iii) communication. Blogging, Twittering, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest etc. all are the different platforms of social media (Treem, et al., 2016). As per the popularity concern, social media has the remarkable rating. There are billions of people can be found to be connected within through social media in all over the world. 
This study on the managing of people focusses on the problems associated with social media for managing people by organization or employers in case of social media. In all the cases, social media has performed the significant role as per the behaviour of the people. Both kind of positive as well as negative impact of social media thus discussed briefly in this study. Also, there are brief discussions on the opportunities and challenges that the organizations and employers are facing because of social media, in this study.

1.    SOCIAL MEDIA OVERVIEW - DATA ON INCREASING USAGE IN THE ORGANIZATION

As per the advancement of web-based technology, a greater number of people are found to be connected to various social media sites or SNS. As per the increased number of SNS, various members of the society which air included with people including all ages as well as social classes. Inside the organizations, there are some boundaries, although it has been found that many organizations provide the permission of use of SNS within the workplace boundaries. As there are several benefits that the companies are needed for the increment in both the number along with the strength in case of ties among the various types of people. This will help to yield the use of digital environments which are easy for capturing and spreading the knowledge. It will also provide the high-quality of answers for the questions (Khole, 2016).
At present the use of SNS is so spread so that it brings greater benefits for the organization performance, so, instead of banning the activities of SNS. In some cases Human resource plays a significant role in the paradigm shifting for understanding, adapting and disseminating the new guidelines within the company.
On the other hand, social media marketers are found to be made usage of the social media sites for raising the visibility in case of internet and for the purpose of promotion of products and services. Social media sites are also useful in building the social as well as business networks in order to exchange the ideas and also knowledge.
Moreover, the publicity originating from social media marketing is such a way for which consumer can trust the product as there is peer review can be followed on “Facebook” or “Twitter” on behalf of the particular organization. Thus data usage is still increasing day by day for the most convenient and easy use of SNS (Yokoyama, 2016).

2.    IMPACT ON SOCIAL MEDIA IN ORGANIZATION

It has been seen that because of advancement in information and communication technology the social media is changing rapidly over past 25 years along with the key development emerging in case of social media.
Also, the development of mobile technology is playing another significant role for the purpose of getting the impact of social media. Within the globe, the mobile devices follow a dominant role in terms of time spending online so that anyone can connect with anyone at any time through the device.
That is the reason the major impact of social media has found within the 80% of the internet users for the interactions among people for becoming more powerful along with their growth (Treem & Leonardi, 2012).
With the rise of use through social media, it is very unusual to find out the organization which will be reached towards the customers as well as the prospects with the help of the social media platform. Thus the organizations observe the real importance of using the social media for connecting the customers in purpose to increase the revenue.
Moreover, as per the realization of the business, the social media can be used for generating the insights, stimulating demand and also creating the targeted product offerings. It is also significant enough for the traditional brick and motor for the businesses and thus it will obviously within the world of e-commerce (Kane, 2017).

3.    POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN ORGANIZATION

As per Bacon below are the basics benefits from social media can be found out and those are:

• 1.    Contents: it is considered as the backbone of the social media. The fresh, relevant information along in regular basis for the audience to be consumed is seen through online and also social media platforms that would not make any commanding traffic. The fresh contents can be dead is the social media does not account that to churn out.

• 2.    Engagement: It is another benefit for organization and also individuals who are willing to engage at their online audience which is generally has been seen with friendly as well as responsive for many another positive perceptions which is used to translate for the sales, patronage along with the brand, loyalty with the army of the brand ambassadors who would go for promoting the brand, product along with the service and cause (Petronio, 2017).

Also, the negative sides of the social media can be as follows:

• 1.    Reduced the brand effectiveness: The negative effects of the social media marketing can cause a direct reduction of brand power in the organization and thus affected by the overall performance of the company. There are the millions of potential customers who are the main driving force for any organization. So, the brand value decrease, the marketers have to face the challenge of rethinking for which they have to communicate the potential consumers (Stylianou, 2017).

• 2.    Performance measurement: There is the negative effect on performance measurement if any one of the services of the organization receives a negative feedback. It will be readily broadcast through the social media (Kim & Hastak, 2018). 

4.    POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON EMPLOYERS

The positive impact of the social media on employers is as follows:

• 1.    Skills: It has been related with the potpourri type of skills for driving the vibrant social media at the presence of the range of graphics, research as well as designs along with the backend management, monitoring, analytics etc. 

• 2.    Consistency: As per the winning o social media there is a presence for generating success till it has the knowledge which is backed with the painstaking efforts along with the commitment at day out. Due to the lack in consistence accounts, there are mostly of online failure at the multinationals, institutions or the public figures (Bryson, et al., 2017).

In contrary, the negative aspect of the social media on the employer can be followed by:

• 1.    Reduced Employee relations: It is the cyberbullying which is responsible for the huge problem in present day. The coworkers can get the opportunity of harassing or sending the negative messages to one another. This fact will hinder the teamwork along with the collaboration. In this situation, employer gets much worried if the task or the project would not be delivered within the specified time limit (Felix, et al., 2017).

• 2.    Confidentiality and the image of the employer: When the employees are allowed to access the social media platform, it may check with the organization more vulnerable to the potential breaches under the confidentiality for the possible tarnished image. The staff is thus carelessly posting the tweets or will be updated regarding the promotions either through the business information of the company may not be ready for releasing the data. It will thus possible to leak the valuable information through social media under the supervision of wrong people (Hur, et al., 2017).

5.    HOW ORGANIZATIONS MANAGE SOCIAL MEDIA (OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES)

The social media networking thus found to be enabling the business for becoming the more social engagement while exploiting the new business model at the innovation based on the ability of the firm. It will monetize and also extract the crowd generated data under the content. Thus the opportunities are lying in case of stronger relationship within the community of reference in the case to exploit the networking effect along with the harnessing the collective intelligence. The company like eBay or Amazon has been managed by building the marketplace through the voluntary contributions as per the user-driven auction system or the user-generated reviews and that has been allowed to the users for actively participating in case of communication flow around the products (North & Kumta, 2018). The spontaneous activities for the users along with the consumers for the firms will constitute the rare as well as the valuable resources which motivate the innovation for which the organization is being captured and managed. So the company would focus on the social media and try for the leverage opportunities.
On the other hand, the social media has been emerged with the technology along with the socio-cultural phenomenon in different perspective. Also, the researchers are found to be dedicated their attention towards the fact that in which way the influence of the social media can be lessened so that the organization can maintain its reputation building, strategic formation or the legitimacy acquisition. It seems that there is the little effort is given to developing the unitary framework for which the organizations can take the challenges in the case to face the confronted with media intensive environment (White, 2016).

6.    HOW EMPLOYERS MANAGE SOCIAL MEDIA (OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES)

According to Yokoyama and Sekiguchi (2014), the SNS can use as the means of the communication through the employees which they can only directly connected to everyone and that includes the high management positions. Also, the SNS can lower the hierarchical barriers for generating the greater connection in between the bosses and other subordinates in various departments. Thus the flow of information will be facilitated under this condition as well. Moreover, the employer should ensure the SNS technologies with merely constitute with another method for informing the employees under the organizational practice with the means of circulating the propaganda of the company (Oyza & Edwin, 2015).
Accordingly, it is needed to follow up the movements of the employees for ensuring the communication between the parties for avoiding the conflict. Thus the organizations are needed to use the SNS in the proper way through which they can monitor the fast dissemination of the information with the responses by the unions in a quick and efficient manner. Thus challenge lies for the employers as the speed of the communication and this ability for providing reliable as well as the accurate information can be possible only through the establishment of constant or continuous relationship along with a consequent approximation with the employees (SHRM, 2016).

CONCLUSION

In this essay, thus, it has been argued that there are many opportunities for using social media along with that there are more threats or challenges which are needed to be handled tactfully and effectively by both the organization and the employers. Every company thus needs to develop the policy for SNS which will help to create the structure, discipline as well as the procedure. Thus the benefit of having the code of the conduct along with the disclosure policy is required to be cleared among each and every personnel in the organization so that there would be confidentiality and common sense along with maintaining transparency and responsibility within any company through the use of social media. 

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