Professional Experience #4
Use of Social Media at Workplace
Jesse Cothran
ENG 315
Instructor: Murray Jackson:
Date:11/07/2019
Social media and workplace
The image illustrates the relationship between social media and workplace. It shows how several platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are utilized at places of work for communication purposes. However, these platforms can also be time wasting when they are used for time.
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Introduction
Social media is a platform that facilitates social interactions and communication.
Businesses have adopted social media for several purposes such as improving critical operations.
This is as a result of the platform's increased visibility, persistence and enabled edibility of information
Social media encompasses several platforms that facilities social interaction and information sharing such as Facebook, twitter, and WhatsApp among others. Interaction is these platforms results to sharing of both formal and informal information among friends, family members or even strangers. For this reason therefore, several business organizations have adopted social media to enhance persistence, edibility, credibility and visibility of shared information.
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Main Agenda
This presentation will illustrate several aspects which are associated with using social media at places of work such as:
Benefits
Policies for the use of social media, and
Increasing formal communication through social media.
The benefits of using social media at the place of work is an indications of the importance of the platforms both to the business organization and tits employee as well as clients such as customers. An example off such benefits includes provision of platforms for running advertisements for the organization. On the other hand, policies represents guidelines on how workers could utilize social media platforms to ensure maximum benefits to the entire organization and its clients. Lastly, the presentation will tackle on means of increasing formal communication through social media in the organization.
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Benefits of adopting Social Media at workplace
It is the best strategy for organizations to access markets both at local and international level.
The platform enables easier engaging of audience in airing grievances through the internet.
It is easier for companies to learn more about their competitors via social media.
It enables formulation of best strategies to offer consumers with goods and utility which satisfy their needs.
It enables marketing of businesses (Cao, Guo, Vogel, & Zhang, 2016, p. 529)
Through social media platform such as Facebook, companies can access local and international markets by observing purchasing trends, population distribution, gender and age among other aspects. Similarly, the larger population of users of social media forms the largest market for most online companies for example the Bushwick Kitchen organization sold honey spices work over one hundred and seventy thousand dollars in less than ten months. Similalry, business can market their services and commodities through social media platforms because it reaches a more extensive market segment both at local an international level (Cao, Guo, Vogel, & Zhang, 2016, p. 529).
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Running Advertisements
Advertisement, which is an important aspect that enable the success of businesses, is a form of communication between the organization and customers.
The aim of such communications is to ensure that potential customers are informed about the services and commodities which are offered.
Advertisement ensures the success of the organization because through it, the organization can provide services and commodities which meet customers’ needs. Therefore, advertising enables creating of market for the organizations’ goods and services. similarly, successful advertisements communicates both the value and quality of services and goods which provides satisfaction to consumers. Potential customers can thus be reached through social media platforms for instance when the organization decides to post pictures and videos of its utilities to websites and blogs of potential customers.
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Policies for the use of social media
Policies are essential to regulate utilization of social media platforms in the organization.
Policies also target at minimizing threats associated with abuse of such platforms by employees.
They encourage accountability both from users and targeted clients.
They facilitate adherence to ethical practices in every business encounters through social media platforms (Hanna, Kee, & Robertson, 2017).
Social media adaption at places of work is associated with several benefits, however, if its utilization is not fully regulated, certain threats which results from its abuse can be witnessed. For example, wastage of time on online platforms by employees reduces productivity of the organization. Regulation of the platforms also encourages accountability among employees of the organization and its customers especially through advertisements and information sharing. Ethical considerations are also enhanced when policies are formulated to govern the use of social media, for example engaging in positive competition by sharing relevant information (Hanna, Kee, & Robertson, 2017).
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Increasing formal communication
Employees of the organization may use social media to access and share information at various levels for instance local and international, for example
workers can learn more about their tasks form colleagues, and
Establishing and maintain positive relations among workers (Lee & Hong, 2016, p. 360).
Despite the policies set by the organization to regulate the amount and kind of information shared though social media platforms at working places, employees may still exploit social media to generate positive relations among themselves by learning certain working skills form one another. This in the long run will become beneficial to the organization since its working force can acquire more efficient skills through information and idea sharing (Lee & Hong, 2016, p. 360).
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Social Media and Privacy at workplaces
Surveillance tools are being utilized by most employers to govern and monitor the kind of information shared by employees.
When employee new workers, employers can also check the kind of information shared by the individual in previous activities.
This determines whether an individual has violated any legal regulations of social media use or not.
The kind of information obtained from potential workers may include records off recklessness, poor moral characters and reputation among others (Robertson & Kee, 2017, p. 191).
Recently, employees have shows a great interest in the employees social media history to obtain certain information which might lead to determination of individuals’ characters. Such information includes compliance to social media usage policies, recklessness and moral characters. His is particularly when hiring new workers. However, existing employees are also monitored through various surveillance tools to determine the kind of information which is being shared (Robertson & Kee, 2017, p. 191).
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Examples of social media platforms
The image above represents some of the commonly social media platforms utilized mostly by employees in the organization. These platforms can be utilized by the organization in various ways such as communication and advertisements.
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Challenges of using Social Media at places of work
Challenges which are associated with use of social media in the place of work includes:
Reduction in productivity of workers due to decreased level of focus and concentration to assigned tasks.
This leads to reduction of performance of the entire organization.
Privacy and security issues might become a serious concern in the organization.
Misconduct of employees when they are in online platforms, and
Risking the reputation of business brands (Sharma & Bhatnagar, 2016, p. 16).
These challenges are likely to occur especially in organizations social media utilization policies are not present or when they are not fully observed or enforced. Critical business information might be leaked to the outside world by careless employees when their operations are not monitored. Similalry, when social media is used for personal purposes, the organization risks the reputation of its brands both in the local and international market (Sharma & Bhatnagar, 2016, p. 16).
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Social Media harassment
Cyber bullying, security threats and textual harassment are examples of crimes committed through social media.
They include sending or receiving of offensive messages between employees and other users of social media outside the organization.
Policies and regulations should be formulated to control of such events I the organization (Taylor et al., 2015, p. 322).
Workers might become victims of social media harassment and cyber bullying particularly where the outside world decides to share offensive messages. Equally, workers may bully other people when they are not adequately monitored to ensure that they do not share offensive information for example to competitors. Organizational policies together with the federal regulations can be used to regulate such cases (Taylor et al., 2015, p. 322).
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Social Media harassment continued
The two image above illustrates how Social Media harassment can be propagated by either employees or users who are outside the business organization.
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Conclusion
This presentation has shown that using social media at workplaces is associated with benefits and various challenges.
To control the usage and the type of information shred between employees and other users, thee organization has to formulate policies which can monitor and guide online activities.
similalry, federal laws are essential in maintaining law and order in the online social media platforms.
control the usage and the type of information shred between employees and other users, thee organization has to formulate policies which can monitor and guide online activities.
similalry, federal laws are essential in maintain law and order in the online social media platforms.
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Conclusion continued
the benefits of using social media in the places of work includes provision of advertisement platforms, equipping of recent and competent skills among workers while negative aspects include: risking of compromising the business brand, employee involvement in unethical activities and cyber bullying and harassments.
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References
Cao, X., Guo, X., Vogel, D., & Zhang, X. (2016). Exploring the influence of social media on employee work performance. Internet Research, 26(2), 529-545. doi:10.1108/intr-11-2014-0299
Hanna, B., Kee, K. F., & Robertson, B. W. (2017). Positive Impacts of Social Media at Work: Job Satisfaction, Job Calling, and Facebook Use among Co-Workers. SHS Web of Conferences, 33, 00012. doi:10.1051/shsconf/20173300012
Lee, J., & Hong, I. B. (2016). Predicting positive user responses to social media advertising: The roles of emotional appeal, informativeness, and creativity. International Journal of Information Management, 36(3), 360-373. doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2016.01.001
References
Robertson, B. W., & Kee, K. F. (2017). Social media at work: The roles of job satisfaction, employment status, and Facebook use with co-workers. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 191-196. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.12.080
Sharma, A., & Bhatnagar, J. (2016). Enterprise social media at work: web-based solutions for employee engagement. Human Resource Management International Digest, 24(7), 16-19. doi:10.1108/hrmid-04-2016-0055
Taylor, M., Haggerty, J., Gresty, D., Criado Pacheco, N., Berry, T., & Almond, P. (2015). Investigating employee harassment via social media. Journal of Systems and Information Technology, 17(4), 322-335. doi:10.1108/jsit-03-2015-0022