q

With rapidly development of the society, social media usage is growing rapidly in recent years worldwide. The number of social media users grew from 244 million to 315 millions with a growth rate of 30 percent in 2010. (Rodriguez, Peterson and Vijaykumar 365) In 2012, social media was forecasted to have a global cost of $14.9 billion. (Rodriguez, Peterson and Vijaykumar 365) Some popular social networks are widely used by people all around the world. For example, Facebook has over 950 million global users and over 500 million daily users globally. (Root and McKay 202) As social media becomes ubiquitous in our daily life, many businesses might have noticed the importance of social media and start to use social media for their business strategy.

According to a research report published in Journal of Knowledge Management, 62% of the enterprises expressed their desire of consolidating social media use for their business strategy. (Cesaroni and Consoli 262) 79% of them used Facebook for their business marketing strategy. (Cesaroni and Consoli 261) Social media can be used not only for expanding and developing business service but also as an effective recruitment tool. In a survey of 1000 HR professionals, 92 percent of them used social media for recruiting candidates. (Root and McKay 203) Despite social media offers several positive effects in business environment, it is important to know the following negative impacts of social media so that business can appropriately use social media for reaching the best benefit.

NEGATIVE IMPACTS

Negative Impact 1

Primarily, the usage of social media can put the business at risk due to the lack of security regulation and enforceable policies. Although social media plays a role of improving products and business service in organizations, some risks can be revealed along with benefits. (Ponemon Institute 1) Several potential risks related to the use of social media in workplace were listed by ISACA, such as virus attack, hijacking, losing control of online content and etc. (Ponemon Institute 1)

Ponemon Institute, which conducts private specialized independent research, published a research report that surveyed 4,640 IT workers who are IT experts with over 10 years working experience from 12 countries worldwide. (Ponemon Institute 1) According to the report, 63 percent of IT workers agreed that social media have negative impact on organizations in terms of security control. (Ponemon Institute 3) Due to social media usage, 52 percent of business experienced attack by malware and 29 percent of them said the incident rate of attack went up by 51 percent. (Ponemon Institute 6) Regarding the reason why social media is risky, 44 percent thought is a lack of regulation of social media usage. (Ponemon Institute 3) The survey shows that the use of social media can be harmful to organizations because of increasing virus attack when there is no enforceable security regulation. As the result, it is important for organizations to enforce policies regarding the use of social media.

Negative Impact 2

Second, Inappropriate self-disclosure of a candidate on social media can harm his online image so as to affect the company’s hiring decision. As for U.S hiring managers, a journal article indicates 70% of them had ever rejected candidates due to their online contents. (Root and McKay 203) 65% of hiring managers said they use social network to see if a candidate presents a positive and professional online image on his social network. (Root and McKay 203) It shows that online image of a candidate is an important factor that can affect company’s hiring decision.

As for candidates, many of them also start to realize the importance of online image. El Ouirdi is a scholar from University of Antwerp. She and three other authors conducted a study on 3374 Italian candidate’s self-disclosure and the journal article was published in ELSEVIER. (El Ouirdi et al. 6) Based on the result of data collection, the mean score of inappropriate self-disclosure (1.59) was lower than career-oriented self-disclosure (3.12) on five-point scale. (El Ouirdi et al. 7) Also, over half of the respondents concerned about keeping positive and professional online image on social media. (El Ouirdi et al. 7) The study suggests that most of candidates are aware of the importance of online self-disposure so that they try to keep a professional online image, as negative or inappropriate self-disposure can truly harm a candidate’s online image and affect his career.

Negative Impact 3

Finally, negative comments of a focal brand on social media can simultaneously impact its rival brands negatively because of perverse halo effect. Perverse halo is a phenomenon that negative comments on a focal brand cause Increasing negative comments on rival brands. (Borah and Tellis 144) It has stronger impact on those companies that have more similarities. (Borah and Tellis 144) Therefore, online comments are important for a company’s online reputation, as consumers highly trust the comments from other consumers. (Borah and Tellis 143) For instance, 92% of consumers are more likely to believe in recommendations from their friends and family rather than advertising. (Borah and Tellis 143) So it is hurtful if those comments are negative. However, online comments can not only influence a brand itself, but also have impact on its rival brands.

Borah is an assistant professor at University of Washington. He and another professor conducted a research report that was published in Journal of Marketing Research. The research paper studied 48 nameplates out of three Japanese and one American car brands. (Borah and Tellis 146) They found out the probability of sharing negative comments among one or more brands was 67%-74% and the probability of sharing negative comments was 56%-91% among nameplates within a brand. (Borah and Tellis 156) The study shows that negative comments on focal brand can hurt its rival brand and vice versa. And the impact is even more intense especially for those companies with more similarities. It is important for business to be aware of perverse halo effect so that they can take action to prevent their competitors from affecting them, for example, companies can minimize the similarities they have with their rival companies in order to reduce the risk.

SUMMARY

Social media both benefits and harms the business environment. In terms of benefits, it improves the development of business marketing service and can be used as an effective recruitment tool. Nevertheless, as social media becomes widely used in business environment, several risks should be concerned. As for a company itself, social media can put the company at a risk of virus attack due to a lack of security regulation and enforceable policies. For a company and its competitors, negative online chatters can be shared among them and influence each other. For a candidate, Inappropriate content from his social media can affect his employment career.

From my perspective, social media itself has two sides. The importance is to know how to use social media in an appropriate and effective way in order to minimize its risks and maximize its profit. One of an interesting fact I found on a journal article is that many small businesses use social media just because they consider social media as a “fashion” in the business world. (Cesaroni and Consoli 266) As the result, it is essential for companies to have full knowledge on social media before they start to use it, otherwise social media cannot contribute as much business value as they think. Candidates should also be cautious with the content they post on their social media in case they are rejected for online image issues. Overall, as long as social media is used in an appropriate and rational way, it can generate its best value in business environment.

Works Cited

Rodriguez, Michael, Robert M. Peterson, and Vijaykumar Krishnan. “Social Media's Influence on Business-To-Business Sales Performance.” Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, vol. 32, no. 3, Jan. 2012, pp. 365–378. doi:10.2753/pss0885-3134320306.

Francesca Maria Cesaroni, and Domenico Consoli. “Are Small Businesses Really Able to Take Advantage of Social Media?” Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, vol. 13, no. 4, 2015, pp. 257–268.

Ponemon Institute, LLC. “Global Survey on Social Media Risks: Survey of IT & IT Security Practitioners.” Ponemon Institute Research Report, 2011, pp. 1-21.

Borah, Abhishek, and Gerard J. Tellis. “Halo (Spillover) Effects in Social Media: Do Product Recalls of One Brand Hurt or Help Rival Brands?” American Marketing Association, vol. LIII, 2016, pp. 143-160, doi: 0.1509/jmr.13.0009

Mariam El Ouirdi, Jesse Segers, Asma El Ouirdi and Ivana Pais "Predictors of Job Seekers’ Self-disclosure on Social Media." Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 53, 2015, pp. 1–12 doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.06.039.

Root Teri, and Sandra Mckay. “Student Awareness of the Use of Social Media Screening by Prospective Employers.” Journal of Education for Business, vol. 89, no. 4, Feb. 2014, pp. 202–206. doi:10.1080/08832323.2013.848832.