Аn Еssеntiаl Раrt Оf Соmmuniсаtiоn In Thе 21st Сеntury (Essay Sample)

SOCIAL EDIA COMMUNICATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY
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Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Introduction PAGEREF _Toc481999574 \h 3Communication in the 21st century PAGEREF _Toc481999575 \h 4Internal communication platform PAGEREF _Toc481999576 \h 4Increase productivity PAGEREF _Toc481999577 \h 6Innovation PAGEREF _Toc481999578 \h 7Crowdsourcing PAGEREF _Toc481999579 \h 7Open innovation PAGEREF _Toc481999580 \h 8Increase sales revenue PAGEREF _Toc481999581 \h 8Limitations of social media as a communication tool in business PAGEREF _Toc481999582 \h 9Negative feedback PAGEREF _Toc481999583 \h 9High risk PAGEREF _Toc481999584 \h 10Costly PAGEREF _Toc481999585 \h 11Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc481999586 \h 11References PAGEREF _Toc481999587 \h 13
Introduction
Competition is turning out to be intensive in today's business environment. Couple with dynamism, competition is a reality that businesses ought to live with. Therefore, in order to survive the storm, businesses need to develop strategies that help it achieve competitive advantage. Proper communication within and without and organization is one of such strategies. Businesses need to identify effective and relevant forums to communicate. In the 21st century, a century characterized by advanced technology, most businesses have opted to the use of social media to enhance communication. Infact, according to Paniagua and Sapena (2014), organizations are striving to transform their corporate resources into business operations through social networking
Social media is defined as a special set of communication applications that enables various users to exchange content in a collaborative community setting (Kenly and Poston, 2017). Dowerah Baruah (2012) asserts that social media offers a variety of avenues through which people can communicate with each other. The use of social media in business has both positive and negative impacts. Some of the advantages of the use of social media in business are that it fosters innovation, leads to increased productivity, increased sales revenue and enhancement of effective internal communication platforms. On the other hand, negative impacts resulting from the use of social media include Negative feedback, high cost, and high risks. This essay, therefore, aims at establishing the advantages of using social media in business in the 21st Century
Communication in the 21st century
In the 21st, the century of technological advancement, social media has eased communication more than ever. Infact, Zhu and Chen (2015) notes that social media has turned out to be the new and modern communication paradigm that facilitates company-consumer message delivery. In the 21st century, people longer need to pick up phones and make calls or even write letters. Similarly, people don't necessarily need to travel long distances to convey important messages. Apparently, technological advancement in the 21st century has made it easy for people to log into social media platforms and pass whatever message they need to pass. It has helped people connect with others, in spite of the fact that they could be geographically displaced. Research shows that over 500 million people use faced book. Research also indicates that of the 500 million users, 250 million people log in to Facebook on a daily basis (Charlotte, 2017). This shows how social media is turning out to be a very popular communication medium particularly in the 21st century and businesses can opt to capitalize the popularity to advance their businesses. Businesses can use the social media platform to enhance communication within organizations tool
Advantages of social media as a communication tool in business
There are a number of advantages that accrue to businesses as result of making use if the social media as a communication tool. Some of the advantages include:
Internal communication platform
Businesses can capitalize the available social media platforms to enhance communication among its employees. Similarly, businesses can also opt to create their internal communications platforms or forums to better their communication. In fact, according to Charlotte (2017), businesses prefer creating their own internal communication forums because of the fear that most employees will turn out to be productive and totally distracted, hence opting for internal communication forums where messaging is minimal and the company can control the intensity of communication.
Businesses can use any of the already existing social media platforms for communication among employees, but many create their own internal communication forums. If businesses decide to use Facebook or any other social media site, there is the risk that employees will become unproductive and distracted and waste time, which is why many opt to create their own communication systems with instant messaging as a minimum. An example of a business that has developed its internal communication forum is Shopify. Shopify came up with its internal communication platform called "Unicorn" (Charlotte, 2017). This platform helps employees communicate with each other particularly regarding the progress of company projects, besides also sharing their success stories. In fact, one of the things that made Shopify's unicorn very successful is that employees were rewarded or rather received cash incentives for actively participating (Charlotte, 2017). Employees use the platform to monitor projects and consequently get monetary compensation for offering their required skills and expertise.
Businesses that are not in a position to create their own internal communication platforms can make use of ready-made available communication platform like "Sales force" (Charlotte, 2017)." Sales force" is a communication platform that businesses can use to enhance creative thinking and improved leadership skills. Use of social media platforms like "Sales force" is important because employees across all divisions available in a company can freely share beneficial, interesting and innovative ideas that can be used to advance business operations. The benefits of using internal communication social media platforms range from improved decision making, close monitoring and collaboration of projects to increase employee recognition. Therefore the advantage social media has offered to businesses in the 21st century is that it has helped businesses enhance communication a great deal.
Increase productivity
With increase competition n dynamism in the business environment, businesses ought to be innovative in order to increase productivity and obtain a competitive advantage. Productivity levels of employees in an organization even determine retention levels, besides also determining the rate of employee turnover in an organization. As V.B.DEVIBALA, Dr.P.ANBUOLI and T.JOTHIMURUGAN (2011) note, productive businesses retain productive employees. Therefore, productivity is key in determining organization's competitive advantage. One of the ways businesses can help employees become productive is through the use of social media. Social media has improved employees' productivity in a number of ways
Firstly Social media is as a communication platform helps employees communicate, share important, beneficial and innovative ideas. Though the social media platforms, employees can monitor the progress of projects and even share helpful ideas regarding best possible ways of improving the coordination and timely implementation of projects (Gracielle, 2016). For example, employees working in the public sector can attest to the advantages social media contributes to their productivity (Gracielle, 2016). Social media makes it easy to disseminate information to various parties in a timely manner. Disaster management and mitigation departments in organizations increase productivity through the use of social media.
Secondly, social media fosters employee retention in the organization, thereby boosting productivity. Most organizations usually recognize the input of their employees through internal communication platforms (Gracielle, 2016). This boosts the morale of employees, therefore increasing productivity. For example, Shopify gave monetary incentives their employees for actively participating in their internal communication platform known as "unicorn" (Charlotte, 2017). This aspect of compensation motivates employees, consequently increasing productivity levels. Increased motivation boosts on productivity, which in turn reduces employee turnover and increases retention
Innovation
Innovation is an important aspect of an organization's growth. Through innovation, businesses are able to grow and achieve competitive advantage. In the current 21st century, the business environment is turning out to be intensively competitive and very dynamic and the only way to remain relevant and competitive is to be innovative (Roberts, Piller and Lüttgens, 2016). Social media has enhanced innovation among businesses, thereby enabling most businesses to achieve competitive advantage. The use of social media can be an excellent and appropriate platform that companies can use to reach both existing and potential customers and capitalize on their creativity. Social media can be an innovation agent in business to develop new products and services through the use of either crowdsourcing or even the use of open innovation.
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing involves networks sharing ideas in order to provide solutions to a particular problem (nibusinessinfo.co.uk, 2017). Crowdsourcing has enabled businesses to be highly innovative. For example, in the year 2014, McDonald gave their customers a choice or free reign to propose ad submit ideas regarding the kind of buggers they would like to see stocked (Kearns, 2015). What McDonald did was to let customers all over the world ...