Organizational Communication and Social Media
Communication via social media involves the use of tools based on the Internet to interact with the audience in a text, voice or graphic form. For an organization to be able to use the social network effectively: it must establish the people it intends to reach and the goal it hopes to achieve. There should be also a mechanism to ensure that the message reaches the target audience and achieves the required objective.
The social media is key to the organizations innovation and change. It provides an opportunity for the business to gain customer insights that can be valuable in coming up with new products as well as improving current ones. The information gotten in real time helps to gather vital customer data and enable smarter business decisions. Social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter or Instagram can help increase the awareness of a brand and the loyalty around it by making it easier for the customers to come across and get in touch with the brand. In the social space, it is possible to make a targeted advertisement on the product or service on offer by a company regarding of locality, interests, demographics, and relationships. Unlike other forms of advertising, it gives the possibility of measuring and tracking the performance of the ad in real time. Taking advantage of this option improves sales and customer retention. The clients get satisfaction through feedback. The shares on the social media also boost the traffic on the official website and the company ranking position.
To minimize conflict within the business caused by social media, it is important to determine any regulatory and legal framework that could affect its use. The misuse of this medium of communication by people can lead to legal claims being leveled against the organization as far as social media activities are concerned. Discrimination claims may arise where the employees say something over the social space, and it is attributable to the company resulting in an aggressive job environment and filling of a legal suit. The organization can avoid this adopting a policy that if an employee posts a thing on their personal account that affects other colleagues or the company then he or she is liable for disciplinary action.
In adopting a public media policy, the security requirements of using different sites should be clear to the company. The approaches to protect the application or even the website are equivalent to securing the e-commerce site of the business or its original application. Companies should build their own framework and apply their requirements without the benefit of adopting a safe process for developing applications. The security of the information decimated in the social networks is important for the achievement of the companies objectives in the long run as it ensures that what is put out there can be accounted for and reflects the right state at the organization.
There should be a code of conduct and clear understanding of what is the acceptable use of the social media by the employees. The Human Resource Department should come up with the policies and train the staff to ensure that they adhere to them. Circumventing of the company security procedures leakage of confidential information should be avoided at all cost.
There should be a person responsible for communication process in social media. He or she should guide the strategic, operational and tactical activities.
The implications of the social media rules are significant in the implementation of the criteria. The post shared via social media should be succinct and informative in a way that it is understandable by the target audience Therefore, this requires a specially trained person in the organization for coordination of the information shared. There should consistency in the organizations social media presence to ensure it gives a timely response to its customers building trusted relationships. There is also a need to keep the conversations in the social space interesting,engaging and open.
