Social Media as a Tool to Improve Internal Communication and Engagement (Essay Sample)

Social Media as a Tool to Improve Internal Communication and Engagement Student's First Name, Middle Initial(s), Last Name Institutional Affiliation Course Number and Name Instructor's Name and Title Assignment Due Date Social Media as a Tool to Improve Internal Communication and Engagement The Value of Social Media in Maintaining Corporate Culture Social media has the power to connect people, and this is true in both the private and public spheres. Companies that can utilize this powerful tool can create welcoming workplace cultures where team members are not only better informed but feel a higher level of engagement with the companies where they work. Social media knits people together, helping them to feel that they are part of a broader collective. Internal social media platforms which are specifically used to connect colleagues with one another can foster feelings of closeness, and this is especially valuable when employees are communicating across multiple offices in different cities or in which some employees are working remotely. As will be demonstrated, social media has a positive correlation on the feelings of connectedness professionals report. Employees who use social media are more likely to identify with the company and its aims, and they will have stronger interpersonal relationships with their colleagues. Companies with active social media networks are perceived as more transparent, and workers like feeling that they can communicate concerns in a venue that executives will be receptive too. However, there are a number of risks to using social media. While employees can engage with approved content they might also engage with information not pertaining to their jobs. If there is an overabundance of communication, it can be difficult to prioritize which messages are most important. Social media accounts can be hacked, creating a nightmare of accountability as the company’s reputation can be quickly and easily tarnished. In spite of these risks, social media can be a remarkably effective tool that companies can leverage to more effectively build communities within their organizations Why social media matters Social media is first effective in transmitting communication, and second as a digital meeting place. Because there is a constant flow of communication from social media accounts, employees get to learn more about the company and its principal actors. This fosters trust through greater transparency (Men et al, 2020). Companies both large and small can feel like spaces where employees can engage when social media sites are used to connect people. The most popular social media platforms are ones with established pools of users, and unsurprisingly sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others are often integrated into workplace culture because staffs are likely to already have a high number of users and these sites have already effectively streamlined the onboarding process so that signing up and getting involved is easy. Social media fosters collaboration by breaking down barriers between people. Colleagues who already have established social relationships through social media are more likely to initiate collaboration since there is already an established level of trust between them. They are also more likely to engage with customers and may, in some cases, see productivity gains of up to twenty-one percent (Men et al, 2020). The reason for this productivity gain is that workers who have adequate information can complete tasks faster. Down time where no communication is taking place between team leader and members is time lost. Email can facilitate communication, but inboxes can quickly fill. There are few limitations on word count, and so the sheer volume of content transmitted via email can be enormous. Social media resolves this issue by allowing for instant communication that users are more likely to engage with in real time (How, 2018). The power of internal social media platforms As stated above, many companies use popular social media platforms which are not specifically oriented around work. Facebook would be a recognizable example. However, there are other social media platforms which are specifically tailored to work and are intended to help coordinate team members, like Slack. These are internal social media platforms (ICMs) designed to connect team members while minimizing noise from outside. Sites like Twitter have private channels which users can access without the distraction of an externally-facing feed can turn a public social media platform into an internally-facing one. ICMs are effective tools when they foster the sense among employees that their opinions are valued and they can share their thoughts among a receptive audience. Moreover, there is a positive correlation between the time spent online and the amount of user engagement and feelings of connectedness to the company (DiPolo, 2020). Because ICMs can function as gathering places, they create a positive feedback loop. Users who engage with the platform see the benefit of it and use it more, which in turn leads to greater benefit. Ambient awareness Besides nurturing a sense of closeness and building trust, an additional benefit of ISMs is the phenomenon of “ambient awareness.” This occurs when people are exposed to information they would not otherwise be aware of. Social media platforms often feature a variation of the “news feed” where short messages from multiple users are organized into a chain of easily digestible bites. By checking in with this feature, users can get the broad strokes of what is being talked about. In this way, the value of social media comes not only from who one knows but also what they know (Zhao et al, 2020). Much more than simply sharing gossip, this feature allows employees to glean the most important priorities and values of the company. This ambient awareness is crucial not only for helping employees to feel engaged but also in making it easier to widely disseminate crucial messages. That is, it creates a kind of lubricant which makes effective communication smoother. It will be easier for employees to summarize and internalize communications which are of a piece with the style of content they already engage with on social media (Zhao et al, 2020). Social media’s value to remote workers As an internet-based tool, social media can facilitate communication between people who are separated geographically by vast distances. This can mean that teams at different offices can create engagement with each other. It can be also mean that remote workers can feel “plugged in” with the company culture in a way that email alone cannot. One study of remote workers found that one of their chief complaints about the job was an inability to feel seen and connected fellow employees (West-Duffy & Fosslien, 2019). Employees who do not feel that their contributions are acknowledged or appreciated will less likely to be engaged, and might look for other opportunities to work for companies prepared to value them in demonstrative ways. Even small gestures of acknowledgement, such as a public attribution of a job well-done by a coworker can have an impact on that employee’s overall impression of the company and its mission (West-Duffy & Fosslien, 2019). Social media can be enormously positive since it encourages communication between people who do not work together directly. For remote workers, especially those who are project-based freelancers, social media can provide an indispensable link to those decisionmakers who can greenlight future projects. In the absence of face-to-face media, social media can help remote workers feel that they are part of the organization, that they are relevant to the company’s success, and that they have colleagues whose expertise they can rely on to get tasks accomplished at work. Augmenting the work experience Social media offers an outlet for communication that is not strictly confined to performing particular tasks. That is, it works best when employees feel that they engage with social media when they have time but are not required to use it in addition to their regular work duties. While it can be a useful tool to disseminate information and help people connect, the benefits of social media are negated if users feel a social obligation to keep up with communications that do not actively contribute to completing tasks and performing work. Thankfully, a study of social media use found that in general users reported that ISMs generally did not detract from personal time or get in the way of performing their jobs. In general, ISMs helped employees by giving them outlets which prevented burnout (Oska et al, 2022). Employees who felt challenged and stressed by their jobs did not necessarily feel disengaged from them. Rather, too much stress can make them feel that they need to escape the daily grind. Social media, it was found, was one way for employees to feel connected to colleagues and the company at large in situations which were not specifically task-based. That is, they were able to see fellows as people in communications which were not oriented around performing a particular task (Oska et al, 2022). When Social Media Becomes Distracting While social media can be a tremendous tool in helping people feel more engaged at work and connected with their fellows, there are risks that social media can become a distraction. One study performed by Wu et al acknowledges that there is a lack of solid data about the degree to which social media can pose a distraction. Generally, studies of social media in the workplace have found the impacts to be broadly positive and the drawbacks to be comparably minimal. Nevertheless, there is some suggestion that Facebook might actually reduce productivity, if only by roughly one percent (Wu et al, 2018). While this finding is too slight to be conclusive, it is not difficult to imagine how social medi...