Social Media Essay Example for Free

fond Media EssayWhat is mixer media? To many, accessible media is a tool to communicate with friends, or even friends of friends in a neutral environs lecture ab show up any topic, events or news freely (Lipscomb 2010). Social media like a shot, not only serve as a tool for individual to communicate, it as well became a platform for companies or individuals to majusculeize on it to drive m unmatchedtary income from it. Social media argon platforms that can enable free converse and sharing of study online (El much than March 2010). Few of the favorable media platforms argon, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Blogs or even web forums that can be apply to apportion information, opinions online. Social media today are very powerful tool to an individual, conjunction, and even a country. Facebook, being the itemise one top traffic societal media site, is tracking around one trillion foliate views per month globally (Double Click Ad Planner by Google 2011), and tracking 615 million page views per month in Singapore (comScore, Inc 2013). With a total of 2. million unique visitors, it is reaching out to 65% of Singapores internet population and hence, if done correctly, fond media platforms can be an empowering tool to enhance a dinky business net reckons fellowship sharing, build social capital, support innovation and countenance in riddle solving and drive more earnings and income. Social media platforms like LinkedIn, are moving towards more than a social media platform. Employers are using more social media tools like LinkedIn to look for potential subscriber lineseekers.LinkedIn is a more corporate social media platform, showing not only profiles and hobbies, plainly also previous job experience and endorsements from peers and colleagues. Job portals like JobStreet are facing more and more competition from social media as job portals normally only shows the jobseekers resume and bye employments. LinkedIn shows the employer the s ocial side of the jobseeker, personal skills they have, and substantiating endorsements from mess. Improving Knowledge Sharing Knowledge is more than just information, it is compile of both know-how (tacit friendship) and know-why (explicit knowledge).In today knowledge-based economy, knowledge has been defined to be one of the anchor assets for organisations to sustain and success (Jashapara 2011). In our society today, more people are sharing knowledge and information on social media platform more than talking face to face. News reports, articles, along with personal opinions can be easily shared out through social media platforms. Knowledge sharing becomes easier and faster with the help of social media. It is essential to understand how knowledge is gained and the methods of how an individual learn.Social learning theory proposes that individual learning happens when individuals are interacting with cognitive, behavioral and environmental factors primarily with other indiv iduals (Jashapara 2011). delinquent to the engaging interaction and heavy usage of social media, it can be a great highway to encourage knowledge creation and sharing. As a study done by Neilson Inc, it encourages employees to share knowledge using social media platforms to better cultivate knowledge sharing (Dina Adamovic 2012).Social media not only uphold in knowledge sharing in within the organization, It can be also used to instill its business partners (Evolution1 Utilizes Social Media to Share Knowledge 2012). By using social media, Evolution1 can greatly take the actually human labour that is essential in support and educational roles. This has let Evolution1 to remain rivalrous in our fast pace economy today. Building Social Capital The concept of social capital and human capital is both closely related, they arrive from the valuable assets of an organization, which are the resources that employees acquire (Jashapara 2011). in that respect are intrinsically three dim ension to social capital Structural dimension showing the linkages and connections between factors such(prenominal) as density and hierarchy of networks Relational dimension that provides the history of interactions between individuals resulting in certain aim of trust, norms and expectations Cognitive dimension that leads to shared meanings, interpretations, mental models and alignment of views. With the help of social media, social capital of the organization can be build up in a faster and easier way.Having to develop better relationships with clients, partners, and also within their employees. It is mentioned that knowledge has been an important factor for an organizations sustainability and success, and then essential to develop a knowledge-sharing culture especially with small medium companies. Social media which has been a platform to communicate in our periodical life is a fast and easy way to communicate as themes can be shared and strategic plans can be discussed w ith a faster response time and even on the go.The online market campaign from Ngee Ann Polytechnic has demonstrated how social media applications can be used as colloquy mediums for idea sharing. The online trade campaign Ngee Ann Polytechnic uses, Tweet about your favorite Ngee Ann Poly Courses, is using an online advertisement to feature this viewing banner. On the banner, viewers can coerce real time and the tweets allow for show up on the banner stating your choice of course.The campaign was a success, driving more than twenty-three million viewers to the ad banner, it also drives more than fifteen thousand viewers to engage and tweet on their twitter page (SG 2012). With the support from the case of Ngee Ann Polytechnic utilizing social media as an idea sharing medium, it has encouraged intensive consumer elaboration which in turns achieved premium brand awareness where it can be a competitive advantage all over it competitors. In addition, it has achieved in transitin g into a successful knowledge-based organization with integrating social media as a communication tool.Innovation For an organization, innovation is very essential, the creation and fostering of new and better ideas keeps an organization to stay onwards of its competitors. Having knowledge workers to constantly having innovative knowledge is an important aspect of an organizations knowledge counsel strategy (Jashapara 2011). In todays fast paced, ever-changing environment, organization is facing the need to constantly innovate new and better ideas. Using social media as a tool, organization can compare and compile innovative ideas from its employees, partners, and even direct consumers.In this manner, organization can better understand what its inter prick is lacking of and what improvements can it make. Aid Problem Solving Social media is being built in a way that it is meant for fast and speedy response. Using social media as a platform, organization will be able to provide rea l-time response and will have significant impact on problem solving as knowledge can be transmitted faster. Furthermore, an open social network will improves communication level within the organization internally and also externally with its vendors and consumers (Murray 2012).In 2010, Grocer Supervalu realize that it has gravid to a big company perating in 44 states with 135,000 employees and 10 distinct store brands from Albertsons to Jewel-Osco to Shaws, it had legal people with plenty of ideas but no way to share them. Hence, a sprawling, disconnected workforce was hurting business. moreover Grocer has soon to adopt an internal social media tools in hopes of fostering cooperation and collaboration amongst its employees across the country.In return, Grocer performance of social media to solve its disconnected workforce saw a increase in sales figures (Ferris 2012). Benefits There is a huge spectrum of benefits for using social media, it is free merchandise for your company, for instance you can place your merchandise promotions and products on your Facebook page, have constant updates on events on your Twitter account, look for potential employees on Linkedin with their pass work experience for free and most of all its free and you can build on your companys branding and awareness through it (Culley 2011).As mentioned earlier, the extensive reach of social media to our population is truly big (comScore, Inc 2013), and also it is also very measurable comparing to traditional media like television, radio or out of understructure media in terms of awareness, consideration, favorability and purchase intend (Feather 2010). Hence fore, companies are moving towards social media then traditional media due to its free, fast and measurable. Risks With much benefit of social media in hand, it is surely good to introduce social media to any organization way of knowledge sharing and also marketing strategies.However, there are also several dangers that come wit h the technology that organisations need to be vigilant of. Risks like identity operator frauds, viruses, potential risk of negative remarks and information leakage. Companies that use social media are easily exposed to them (Esola 2010). The risk of identity fraud will pose a great threat to the organization as you are not aware if the receiver that you are sharing information with is the actual person when communicating over social media. For example that the receiver is impersonating the actual person, important information of the organization may be leaked to them.It is therefore a must for organization to establish and manages policies on the type of information can be communicate when using social media. In addition, when sharing information with social media, the organization may employ methods such as providing details for verification purposes. Potential risks of negative remarks and comments will also be some other key factor organizations should take note of. Because of social media, a negative remark will go viral overnight and tarnish the companys reputation. Just like the recent saga of Miss Amy Cheong, she casually tweet on her twitter account on how weddings of a particular is being carry out.Soon, her comment went viral and the next day her service with NTUC as an Assistant Director in the partnership alliance section (Holdings 2012). Paid, possess, Earned Media Social media can be further segmented into Paid, Owned, and Earned media. Due to the current marketing trend of using social media to improve knowledge sharing, build social capital, create innovation and aid in problem solving, social media have evolve into these three segments (Silk 2012). Paid media means good, old-fashioned advertising, the purchasing of airtime or space on someone elses TV channel, website, printed page, supermarket shelf or out of home bus shelter.Owned media on the other hand is personal or corporate websites, blogs, that showcases the individuals or comp anys profile and information. Earn media are websites or even blogs, Facebook pages that necessary work to earn coverage of their issue or battle are the ones who will get their story out to the public (Sunshine 2011). Over the years, the media landscape has been ever changing, altering the way how organizations and individuals share knowledge and market themselves.Owned media can be easily shifted to earned media when it is being effectively managed. Earned media also provide another avenue of income to the organization and also benefits the organization in better measuring of popularity, awareness, consideration and favorability of the organization. Conclusion In conclusion, social media has a lot of beneficial aspects which organization can used to share knowledge, build social capital, foster innovation, aid in problem solving and the best will be to be used as a sustainable competitive advantage over competitors.Using social media to better communication amongst employees, it c an bring individual employees closer and better facilitate cooperation and collaboration, leading to more effective knowledge sharing and generating of innovative ideas that is beneficial to the organization. Having a knowledge organization with intangible assets will be one of the key aspects to maintain successful in our current fast paced and ever-changing environment. With all the infinite benefits that social media can bring to the organization, it also comes along with great risks and threats that cannot be overlook.Viruses and malwares in our computer systems can greatly affect the day to day operations of the organization and the information that is being processed. Furthermore with the risk of consumers or employees using social media to create negative publicity for the organization, it is sure that organization needs to be cautious in handling social media as a tool. For small to medium companies that will like to contain social media into their whole organization struct ure, it is the upmost important task to establish policies and develop strategy plans to expeditiously manage the risks and threats that the organization may be exposed to.Planning ahead and risk forecast is needed to be done in order to gain more benefits from the implementation of social media. Effective marketing opportunities can also be gain from social media when used correctly. Using social media as an owned and earned media, organization not only can capitalize on business relations development, but can also aid in generating another avenue of income for the organization.