Long Report

This week you will finalize your long report. Incorporate feedback your instructor provided on the draft submitted in Module 6. Continue to fill in any gaps. Make sure your report follows appropriate format, business voice, and grammar. Submit your Long Report above using the link provided.

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Long Report: Social Media Use

Olatunde Michael Epebinu

03/06/2020

With operations on social media constantly changing and advancing with the changes in the working environment, organizations have also been forced to adapt accordingly. Social media has effects on both small and large business organizations from different angles. Social media forces businesses to create the best brands that enable them to communicate effectively with their clients. Moreover, companies also use social media to enhance employee engagement and productivity in several ways.

Social media platforms give users the ability to create user accounts that they use to share online content such as videos, pictures, messages and other information to their followers and friends on the internet. All forms of social media platforms allow individual users, organizations including nonprofit and business organizations to create their profiles to market their businesses. For instance, a profile that is used by a business may have pictures of the brand’s products, links to the products site among many other properties that make the client get involved in online buying.

In the previous assignment, we elaborated on the issue of social media enhancing employee engagement and productivity in their day to day business activities. The text uncovers an enhancement in 2018 by Facebook called Workplace that allowed users to share their different ideologies, collaborate and connect. The employers have access over the information being shared in the platform and this ensures that only relevant information that is aimed towards the company’s growth is discussed by the employees. The collaboration between the employees makes the sharing of resources and ideas very easy and this ensures that the overall organizational productivity is boosted.

While social media may be known for the wide spectrum of benefits it brings to individuals and corporates, it is also a source of misappropriation that results in massive losses if its use is not regulated. There is a need for best practices, regulations and ethical concerns to be adhered to as far as the use of social media platforms is concerned.

In the previous assignment, we expounded on the issue of best practices, regulations and ethical concerns as far as the use of social media is concerned. In the annotated bibliography, one of the articles elaborates on the aspect of effectively integrating social media into business practice, applications, management, and models. Lee (2014) argues that it is within the reach of corporates to come up with methods to enhance the use of best practices as far as social media is concerned to prevent the spread of rumors and false information that may taint the company’s reputation.

Banghart et al., (2018) dwell on the issue of social media policies as they should be adopted in any organization. The authors argue that for a company to be successful, it needs to come up with elaborate policies and procedures to govern the use of social media by its employees and how the organization communicates through the use of the same media. The authors hold that there is a need to make sure that the postings of the employees reflect on the values of the company and that they may not be used to taint the company’s reputation.

In summary, social media has both positive and negative impacts on a person or a corporates brand image. The impacts are however largely dependent on the specific use of the media by those that have access to it. As a result, all individuals including employees in the corporate world are called to be careful about how they use social media to bring positive impacts on their brand image.

References

Banghart, S., Etter, M., & Stohl, C. (2018). Organizational boundary regulation through social media policies. Management Communication Quarterly, 32(3), 337-373.

Lee, I. (Ed.). (2014). Integrating social media into business practice, applications, management, and models. IGI Global.