Social media

SOCIAL BENEFIT OR SOCIAL DISASTER? Name: Institute affiliation: Date: Explain the advantage and drawbacks for organizations using social media to communicate with the various employees, customers, or the global communities. Social media is a very beneficial tool to use for business as it can be the most cost-effective way of enhancing communication with both the employees and the customers. Although it has sometimes it has some disadvantages, Social media can be used to make an organization become more popular and attract a big number of audience as it helps to create brand awareness grabbing the attention of potential customers. Social media also helps in enhancing friendly interaction between in a very fast way and this becomes very cost-effective and time-saving as there is direct communication from both the employers and the employees. This tool is a great way of enhancing customer service because there is direct customer interaction and it is also a way of attracting and persuading other potential customers. The use of social media helps to increase the website traffic by the content shared and this will boost the online conversations, which can be a great way check the traffic of people visiting the organization’s website and can lead to an increased sale. When social media is well used, it can help to create a great brand reputation and can lead to having an increase in loyalty from the customers as it is a great way of building great relationships. There are some cons of using social media whereby an organization needs to commit more resources to be able to manage social media accounts. This calls for hiring and training more staff and also paying for more adverts and this could be a bit expensive. Sometimes it can be hard to quantify the monetary value that has been brought about by the use of social media in an organization and also it can be ineffectively used in an organization. The benefits of using social media in an organization outweigh its drawbacks and this is the new way of doing business in the modern world. Describe how communication barriers surface when using social media versus when using traditional media Social media is the use of networking sites which includes, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and Whatsapp while the Traditional media is the conventional mean of communication which include the newspaper, Television and radio. While using social media, there can be communication barriers that occur which could make it ineffective unlike when using the traditional media.  The physical barrier tends to give different challenges to online communication. These barriers include time, place and the medium to use. Sometimes, there is no enough time to respond to emails, update your website or even respond to messages on Facebook, Twitter or even Instagram. There is also the problem of communicating to people on platforms that they do not even use hence they will not receive the information you are trying to share with them. Attention barrier. These barriers occur when your audience misses out on the information you are trying to relay to them because they are focused on their work. Here you will miss out on their feedback as they did not give your information the required attention.   The credibility barrier. This tends to interfere with digital communications when your audience does not trust the message or the messenger. On social media, it is easy to get information that is out of content and get to assume that the organization is biased. This would ruin the credibility of the organization. The identity barrier. This sometimes can lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding and the misrepresentation of people’s idea or a message given on social media. Outline specific steps managers should take to be sure they communicate effectively when using social media Managers who intend to use social media as their medium of communication should ensure that they do it effectively. Always consider quality when using social media to make sure that you communicate effectively. Clients are always looking for where they can get products and services that meet their expectation. The manager should make sure that they are leading the conversation on social media using the right topics. It is important to make sure that they build familiarity with their area of expertise. It is also essential for them to keep all the personnel involved in the organization informed on the company’s news. This includes the employees, stakeholders and even the clients, they should be aware of what is going on in the company. When using social media, it is important for the manager to make sure they can handle any crisis that could face the company as this is the fastest way of spreading the news on the crisis. They should learn to take ownership of the problems. Managers can use social media to effectively express the organization’s opinion on the important social issues and they can share on what action the organization can take to make a difference.  Explain rules or policies(if any) business organizations should implement for employees using social media after office hours. Be as specific as possible. Employees using social media after office hours should make sure whenever they post any work-related subject, they should include a disclaimer that the posting on the site are their own and may not represent the company’s opinion. The employees should make sure that they keep their social media personal account separate from the company’s account. Employees are not to disclose any information or details of the company that is considered private and confidential on the social media platforms after the working hours before consoling with the management. The employees should be cautious about whatever they post as it could taint their image and that the image of the company. Discuss the communication barriers a manager might encounter when using social media to create an organizational internship program The major barrier that any manager would encounter is getting to select the most appropriate social media platform to achieve the objective of the program. There are the different platforms that managers can use and finding the appropriate one is the biggest challenge as it is not easy to create an organization internship program on platforms like twitter. The managers could face the trust barrier when using social media as there have been fraud incidences where people use the digital platform to con people. There is also the barrier of having negative comments from people who are not interested in an organization or even the company’s competitor because there are many people who access social media.  From your recent reading and experiences, suggest guidelines managers and organizations should follow. An organization needs to have different guidelines that they need to follow to make sure that the company is running smoothly. They need to have the right employees who are willing to work with low or no supervision, and who are motivated to deliver as per the organizations’ expectation. There is also the need to choose the right structure that will help in running the organization smoothly and effectively. Watching out for the competitors is also very essential for an organization as it will be ready to take different measure to deliver as per their customers' expectation. References Hjorth, L., & Hinton, S. (2019). Understanding social media. SAGE Publications Limited. Pourkhani, A., Abdipour, K., Baher, B., & Moslehpour, M. (2019). The impact of social media in business growth and performance: A scientometrics analysis. International Journal of Data and Network Science, 3(3), 223-244. 8 SOCIAL BENEFIT OR SOCIAL DISASTER? Running Head: SOCIAL BENEFIT OR SOCIAL DISASTER? 1