Annotated Bibliography ( How does social media affect business?)

Impact of Social Media on Businesses

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Introduction

The emergence and use of the social media is a phenomenon that has been widely perceived as the hallmark in meeting the information need of businesses seeking to grow in the modern market (Buzzetto-More, Johnson, & Elobaid, 2015). As such, the social media is the most pervasive tool individuals and business use for communication purposes. The growth in the use of social media has immensely been boosted by the continuous development of technology. Currently, there are over two billion active users of the social media (Jansen, Zhang, Sobel, & Chowdury, 2013). Such statistics demonstrate the growing overreliance of the use of social media among the current generation of people. Therefore, businesses continue to embrace the use of social media with an aim to directly connect with their consumers worldwide and enhance their business prospect in the market (Kalsnes, 2016). Nevertheless, there have been some reported changes in business performances following the growing acknowledgment of social media at the workplace. For example, the use of social media has been instrumental in responding to issues relating to work ethics, productivity, as well as security and privacy at the workplace. Therefore, the use of social sites such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Skype, and Snapchat have tremendously improved such attributes of the business as mentioned above. Therefore, the thesis will delve into discussing the impact of social media on businesses.

Employee Productivity

Social media is an excellent resource for improving employee productivity at the workplace (Heller Baird & Parasnis, 2014). For example, social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, or even Skype, have received a wider audience in many organizations following the need for enhancing information dissemination. The use of such social sites offers the flexibility and urgency needed in improving both internal and external business communication. Bestowing from Heller Baird ad Parasnis (2014), the extent of social media productivity to businesses should adopt a critical perspective since it is subject to a firm’s success or failure. Relatively, the deployment of some tools within the social media platforms such as digital games is a source of destruction and would negatively impact employees’ productivity at the workplace (Qualman, 2013). Besides, the misuse of social media platform by staff may bring about other unforeseen liability to the staff. For example, having gadgets that will allow consumers to access Facebook and Instagram will vitiate the ethical observance at the workplace as workers will be engrossed in browsing and viewership of explicit contents and not in working (Alaimo, 2017). In the long run, the business will experience decreased productivity further threatening the basics of the business livelihood, i.e., the productiveness of the staff.

Human Relations

The widespread use of social media by the global society has a resounding impact on the human relations at the workplace (Deighton, 2015). For example, the use of social sites such as LinkedIn, tweeter, or even Facebook and Snapchat have been important in understanding the relationship between people at the workplace. For example, staff members may go about learning their fellow staff by visiting their profiles on social site and enhancing their engagement on those scopes. As such, positive use of social media facilitates information sharing among staff and departments within the business (Hall, 2017).

However, the use of social media has also witnessed some strain in staff relationship, high turnover, and even termination at work (Deighton, 2015). Apparently, social media has been a source of social evil not only in business but extensive the society. People form part of the society and as such, are likely to carry their innuendo to the office. Also, social media have been used in extreme cases of profiling, i.e., making racial comments about fellow staff either through facebook or even twitter. Such acts have an impact on the relationship status of employees and may further increase the politicking level in the organization (Hines, 2014). As such, the soaring enmity levels may debilitate team and group processes in a business setting further amounting to mistrust, insecurity, and turnover.

Security of the organization Computers

Bestowing from Belch and Michael (2015), employees on several occasions may subject organization resources to wrong use. The mainly misused resources in the case usually include the Wi-Fi, tablets, and organization computers. As such, employees will occasionally access social sites through the organization computers and gadgets. The addiction may further lead them to sidestep organization policies by making changes to the settings on the organization computer and tablets while accessing social sites (Jain, Joshi, & Shashi, 2014). However, managers are increasingly becoming aware of the social media menace, and their liabilities, further prompting the adoption of monitoring software to track their employee activities at their workstation as well as filtering software to block access to social sites. The use of such monitoring and filtering software is justified by in monitoring a potential liability that an employee may cause to the business either regarding its publicity or internal cost (Schultz, 2016).

Nevertheless, the recommendation of such policies has their pair of challenges, further posing a dilemma on the best practice in the case. Furthermore, Belch and Michael (2015), outline that such restrictions tend to stir an attitude, as well as vitiate staff morale towards work. In effect, organizations need to be sensitive and responsive to staff affiliation needs and should strike a balance by recommending appropriate extent to which such social sites should be used as not to amount to unintended repercussion towards work.

Publicity/ Company Image

The social media is widely used by businesses as an online platform to extend their marketing drives (Suh, Shin, Ahuja, & Kim, 2014). Conferring with Suh and his colleagues (2014), social media has widely been used to empower small businesses and giving them a promising prospect for driving growth. For example, many small companies have been able to thrive in the garage, yard sales, living room, and the kitchen into large enterprises owing to their increasing exposure in the social media. Relatively, the methods by which employers’ or even employees’ represent the business aspirations using social media have an impact on the Company public reputation (Elefant, 2014). An advantage of the use of social media in enhancing publicity is its cost-effectiveness. Social media offers an inexpensive advertisement strategy, especially for small businesses.

Contrarily, the use of social media has also been a source of negative publicity where they are not adequately managed. For example, social media such as Twitter and Facebook has widely been used by individuals as an open platform to criticize companies (Kovach, Kenneth, Jordan, Tansey, & Framiñan, 2015). In extreme cases, such social sites are usually vulnerable to hacking and wreaking havoc on a company’s business interests. Also, tweeting leaking tweets that bear significant private information about a Company may vitiate stakeholder’s confidence in the business (Kovach et al., 2015).

A summary of the Pros and Cons of the use of Social Media

Some of the significant advantages over the use of social media by businesses are that it provides the fastest means of reaching out to a broader audience. Besides, the social media has widely been used by firms to foster relationships with their loyal customers while growing their customer base (Appignani, Jones, Watson-Manheim, & Welch, 2016). Similarly, the use of social sites is pivotal to empowering small business and large enterprises alike to enter into higher market niches and mainstream markets. Companies are continuously focusing on the use of social media as an inexpensive alternative to conducting HR functions (Quish, 2015). As such, the social media has been critical in connecting job hunters and job seekers in the global economy.

Conversely, social media has exposed several businesses to adverse situations such as the spread of propaganda that may hurt business interest and publicity. Social media has also exposed companies to commercial risks such as posting of negative comments by the public (Vaast & Kaganer, 2013). Social media is also a stressor factor considering the number of strains it may have on staff relationship status in the business. Relatively, social media has been a source of immoral and unethical controversies for many organizations ranging from organization politicking, sexual misdemeanors, and racial slurs, and cyberbullying (Sánchez Abril, Levin, & Del Riego, 2014).

Conclusion

Bestowing from Hall (2017), the use of social media in the workplace should take care of the confidentiality, information security, as well as employer interest in the Company. Contrary to which, the integration and use of social media will yield adverse outcomes for the business. Agreeing with Heller Baird and Parasnis (2014), social media also have an impact on staff productivity and relationship depending on the suitability of its implementations. Therefore, it is recommendable that organizations should devise strategies of limiting adverse consequences on the use of social media, including the use of filtering and monitoring software where possible (Elefant, 2014). Social media is a phenomenal culture. Besides, social media is quickly getting to its peak as technological update continues to persist. Therefore it is crucial for businesses to keep defining the degree of freedom, as well as privacy limits in sustaining positive business practice (Alexander, 2014).

References

Alaimo, K. (2017). Social Media for Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations. Communications Writing and Design,41(1), 191-197. doi:10.1002/9781119267485.ch9 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119267485.ch9/summary

This one I have to register to see abstract, I would like to change it

Alexander, D. E. (2014). Social media in disaster risk reduction and crisis management. Science and Engineering Ethics, 20(3), 717-733. Retrieved November 26, 2017 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/S11948-013-9502-Z

Appignani, T., Jones, S., Watson-Manheim, M. B., & Welch, E. (2016). SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE WORKPLACE. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, 5. Retrieved November 26, 2017, from https://spir.aoir.org/index.php/spir/article/view/1032/688

I think this link is right

: https://spir.aoir.org/index.php/spir/article/view/1032

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Buzzetto-More, N. A., Johnson, R., & Elobaid, M. (2015). Communicating and sharing in the semantic web: an examination of social media risks, consequences, and attitudinal awareness. Interdisciplinary Journal of e-Skills and Lifelong Learning, 11, 47-67. Retrieved November 26, 2017 http://www.ijello.org/Volume11/IJELLv11p047-066Buzzetto1666.pdf

Deighton, J. (2015). Integrated Marketing Communications in Practice. The Advertising Business: Operations Creativity Media Planning Integrated Communications,27(1), 339-356. doi:10.4135/9781452231440.n35

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Elefant, C. (2014). The power of social media: legal issues & best practices for utilities engaging social media. Energy LJ, 32, 1. Retrieved November 26, 2017 http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/energy32&div=6&id=&page=

Where is a whole article?

Hall, J. (2017, February 15). How To Target Three Generations With Social Marketing, Not Stereotypes. Retrieved November 23, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/02/15/how-to-target-three-generations-with-social-marketing-not-stereotypes/#3bfa7b5a27d5

This one, I did not see any abstract on this website (does not show me in the top word (abstract). I would like to change it

Heller Baird, C., & Parasnis, G. (2014). From social media to social customer relationship management. Strategy & leadership, 39(5), 30-37. doi: 10.1108/10878571111161507

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Hines, K. (2014, April 01). How to Use Social Media for Crisis Management. Retrieved November 23, 2017, from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-use-social-media-for-crisis-management/

This one, I did not see any abstract on this website (does not show me in the top word (abstract). I would like to change it

Jain, M. S., Joshi, M. P., & Shashi, M. (2014). Impact of social media on business. target, 1, 1. Retrieved November 26, 2017 http://www.ijbm.co.in/downloads/sourav-jain.pdf

Jansen, B. J., Zhang, M., Sobel, K., & Chowdury, A. (2013). Twitter power: Tweets as electronic word of mouth. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 60(11), 2169-2188. Retrieved November 26, 2017 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.21149/full

Kalsnes, B. (2016). The social media paradox explained: comparing political parties’ Facebook strategy versus practice. Social Media+ Society, 2(2), doi: 2056305116644616.

Where is a URL?

Kovach, D., Kenneth, A., Jordan, J., Tansey, K., & Framiñan, E. (2015). The balance between employee privacy and employer interests. Business and Society Review, 105(2), 289-298. Retrieved November 26, 2017 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/0045-3609.00082/full

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Belch, George E., & Michael A. Belch. (2015). Advertising and promotion: An integrated marketing communications perspective. 3rd ed., vol. 32, McGraw-Hill Education. Retrieved November 26, 2017 http://202.74.245.22:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/54/Advertising%20and%20Promotion%206th%20ed.%20Belch.pdf?sequence=2

This one, the website does not work

Qualman, E. (2013). Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business. John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved November 26, 2017 http://www.mitp.de/out/media/9783826690204_leseprobe_02.pdf

This one, I did not see any abstract on this website (does not show me in the top word (abstract). I would like to change it

Quish, R. (2015). Social media: creating richer relationships in the workplace. People & Strategy, 33(3), 7-8. Retrieved November 26, 2017 https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-241179563.html

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Sánchez Abril, P., Levin, A., & Del Riego, A. (2014). Blurred boundaries: Social media privacy and the twenty‐first‐century employee. American Business Law Journal, 49(1), 63-124. Retrieved November 26, 2017 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-1714.2011.01127.x/full

This one, I did not see any abstract on this website (does not show me in the top word (abstract). I would like to change it

Schultz, D. E. (2016). Integrated Marketing Communications and How it Relates to Traditional Media Advertising. The Advertising Business: Operations Creativity Media Planning Integrated Communications,38(2), 325-338. doi:10.4135/9781452231440.n34

Where is a URL?

Suh, A., Shin, K. S., Ahuja, M., & Kim, M. S. (2014). The influence of virtuality on social networks within and across work groups: A multilevel approach. Journal of Management Information Systems, 28(1), 351-386. Retrieved November 26, 2017 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2753/MIS0742-1222280111

Vaast, E., & Kaganer, E. (2013). Social media affordances and governance in the workplace: An examination of organizational policies. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 19(1), 78-101. Retrieved November 26, 2017 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12032/full

Note: Can you tell me, where are a four scholarly/academic journals?