Advantages And Disadvantages Of Social Media For Businesses

The Definition of Social Media

Discuss about the Social Media and Modern Rheumatology Practice.

Social media can be considered as the most important element in business today and its uses have evolved over the period of time. Losing productivity has become an overriding and the main concern in the current time, the important thing now is to harness the power of the social network since it is has become a most important thing in society.

The report will understand the advantages and disadvantages of social media. Social media is actually an umbrella word and can be defined as media like video, picture and many more being shared as a part of social associated with web-based applications for many people to communicate with the help of posting, commenting as well as sharing. At the same time, the more traditional form of media including television, magazine as well as newspapers are part of static and never permit the consumers to communicate with the help of content.

The report will discuss in detail about the various fields of business which is one of the most important fields in the present time as the main influencer of the social network. At the same time, the report also highlights the crucial issues of a present world like online crime as well as addiction to a social network as main disadvantage. Also, there will be an analysis related to the dominance of social network and how they impact people in the coming future.

The main objective of the report is to understand social media and its advantages and disadvantages. The report will also discuss that how social network will impact business in the future.

The primary reason to select this topic is the vast usage of social media in different aspects of a business. The Internet is the foundation of telecommunication systems and use of social network basically is the extension of the internet. For all kind of connection and factors, the social media has become an integral part of businesses and people lives.

Social networking is a particular kind of social media that helps the consumer to connect with people and at the same time create a community (Stelzner, 2014). It is more about building association than just announcing or just posting and at the same time not engaging with anyone. The managers can use an internal base of social network websites for the workforce and further leverage public-facing social media base to market the brand as well as attract the staff and customers.

The Importance of Social Media to Business

The concept of a social network is based on the social form of structure which is made up of a group of actors and complicated set of dyadic ties that lies between such actors. Social media can also be defined as any kind of publication on the internet or the presence that permits the user to properly engage in so many kinds of conversation at the same time which is in or around the content on the internet. Social media, as well as social networking, usually aim at two-way communication which exists between the site as well as the people using it. Two-way communication means that feedback is permitted on social media content and there can be communication between the writer or anyone reading as well as using it.

The Internet-based technology came into existence in the year 1960. The ancestor of the today’s Internet was termed as ARPANET and it was created in the year 1969 for ARPA also called as Advanced Research Project Agency as a part of US Department of Defence. In other words, they only wanted to build a mode of communication in an electronic form that can easily carry a military form of data without much disturbance. In the year 1971, Ray Tomlinson gave invention to the very first electronic mail program (Cook, 2017). Twenty years later, in the year 1991, a person called Tim Berners-Lee invented website or world wide web and developed HTML also called a Hypertext Markup language that settles the links.

The concept of social network came into existence ever since the technology of internet was the first set up in the year 1960. The very first online communities were Usenet which was developed by the graduates of Duke University, Jim Ellis and Tom Truscott (Tiago & Verissimo, 2014). The concept of Usenet was close to the discussion forum where people were free to share their views as well as suggestions. In the year 1984, the same method of online communication was termed as BBS also called Bulletin Board System. The upcoming of the social network was than rocketed with the invention of websites or world wide web.

One of the most crucial and dominant social networks was Friendster which was founded in 2003 by Jonathan Abrams. In addition to this, there were LinkedIn as well as Myspace were very popular in their fields. Right after the year 2003, the concept of the social network becomes a trend that by the time Facebook came into existence which was the year 2006, the users on the internet had so many options in front of them (Tan, 2016). In the present time, Facebook is considered as one of the most successful social networks with more than one billion active users every month and over six hundred million of mobile users, approx. fifty million pages and in the end ten million usages of apps.

The History of Social Media

As discussed, Facebook is constantly cited and used the first stop for many users. It is also very important for many business establishments as well to register their presence on social media. Network on this social networking site is huge which is combined with its flexible usage as well as simplicity of the usage which further make it an ideal fit for many businesses. Another social media site that is Google+ has gained a lot of attention in social networking and it provides so many distinct advantages. Businesses that have the presence on Google+ enjoy favourable rating in the search results of the company as the company constantly work to integrate the network and the platform is considered small in size that can develop a more intimate as well as customized conversations with the consumers (Aljabre, 2012). Twitter can be utilised the platform for an organization with a normal flow of news headlines or links that share with a number of followers. For business houses with a regular stream of content in the form of images and videos and Instagram now also part of Facebook, helps a visual mode of telling the story at the same time also boasts a huge audience of consumers. Other than this, there are so many other platforms as well that provide marketing opportunities for the right kind of business. Platforms like Pinterest is also growing steadily, mainly for female consumers for its visual and scrapbook style content and the company is also very popular among so many working professionals who do freelance work to find clients.

Following is the detailed discussion of advantages of social network: –

1. The existence of social network is placed on many online networks where people are meeting as well as sharing concepts along with experiences and recommendations. Therefore, it is same as the non-stopping communication with the huge audience via so many kinds of platforms or websites (Panahi, Watson & Partridge, 2016). This is part of one factor that the companies are mostly looking for in social media because this way they can gain diverse kind of advice as well as feedback from people.
2. Many organizations also use a network like Twitter and Facebook just to directly connect and communicate with consumer and potential consumers. This lends up to generating so many opportunities for so many job seekers to understand more about the company and comfortably connect with people who operate there.
3. People looking for the job can also become familiar with one operating via social network and once they accomplish strong presence on such networks and it further becomes the most feasible alternative to reach people which have authority to recruit workforce (Gilbert, 2014).
4. Different forms of social network convey efficient forms to look for job opportunities. One such kind of search is also about the organization in Google by just typing the name of the organization. Platforms like Facebook or Twitter are a perfect example of a social network which is able to communicate with people who are with the company (Dijkmans, Kerkhof, & Beukeboom, 2015). There are some instances where one can meet the recruitment managers and have some communication as well as a discussion which can raise the chances to get that specific job. In addition, the profile of the person can also be distributed on the social network, which will further increase the possibility of getting the job (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016). As per the research and many researchers, developing an online presence permits the hiring recruiters as well as friends and colleagues to understand more about people and what they are offering and what an individual actually wants. It is a method to draw jobs to people instead of spending the time on looking for jobs.
5. Another important thing to take into consideration is the impact of the social network on business and its functions like social media marketing. By working as a social network as the important step, social media marketing is able to gain so many advantages consisting association building, publicity, the building of the brands and promotions. Thus, social media helps businesses in getting so many opportunities no matter the size to build the business and establish as a brand.
6. Aid in selection and recruitment: there is a number of social media platforms that can be utilised in order to publicize the openings, verify the background data as well as source potential candidates.
7. Marketing of employer brand: to share media related to events of employees as well as values that assist in setting up the brand to attract customers and applicants.
8. Provide internal communications: communicating HR policies, advantages, news of the company, social events as well as professional growth and more can make presentations to the workforce at any point of time.
9. Engage workforce: internal social media platforms can be more engaged and inspire huge participation than the routine e-mail interactions. The workforce can feel that they have a place to put their views when their postings as well as comments which are encouraged actively.
10. Promoting social learning and sharing of knowledge: giving employees with a method to connect with the colleagues to solve issues promotes the learning at the social platform and can rise knowledge sharing on international platforms.
11. Interact at the time of disaster: employees that are displaced can see a lot of emergency data from the devices to stay in touch with the owner and accomplish direction.

Following are the detailed discussion of disadvantages of social networks: –

1. Crime: throwing light on the advantages of the social network, it doesn’t always mean that there are so many disadvantages as well. In the current time, crimes on the internet which are also called as Cybercrime shows a rise in a threat to all the users of the internet. This consist of online exploitation sexually as well as cyberbullying. One of the main issue to eliminate cybercrime is that it is challenging to recognize the offender. It is also almost impossible to keep the surveillance completely in such immense network.
2. Sexual exploitation on the website: the most aggressive kinds of cybercrime in online sexual exploitation. This consist of sharing obscene images and harassing through obscenity. There were more than six lakhs registered sex offenders that were convicted in the US as per the study conducted on National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.
3. Cyberbullying: the concept of cyberbullying is a different form of bullying which is face to face since the bullies here can do sitting in their home behind an anonymous name. The concept of cyberbullying is also a kind of cybercrime which consist of different branches. Most common kind of cyberbullying is harassment, where the insulting messages are sent repeatedly to the victims. Other forms of cyberbullying like flaming, impersonation, denigration as well as exclusion are part of the world of social media. The most important methods are called cyberstalking which adds up the harassment with crucial threats as well as end up in fear.
4. Safety: use of social media website on organization networks opens the door to viruses, hacks and breach on the basis of privacy.
5. Harassment: workforce may be part of harassing attitude towards colleagues on social media, and HR will require taking some concrete actions if it becomes well aware of such behaviour.
6. Wrong exposure: posting from present to former workforces or even customers casting the owners in a bad light, may further damage the reputation of employers.
7. Violations in legal work: the owner becomes susceptible to further charge discrimination, violations of privacy and interfere with the rights of the workforce under section seven of the National Labour Relations Act which among another kind of violations when the existence of social media is utilised in the workplace.
8. A loss in the level of productivity: there are employees that spend a lot of time on social media for personal motive at the workplace. Enforcement of the clear set of policy in terms of using while functioning can assist to mitigate the current risk.
9. Hourly and wage challenges: non-exempted employees limited to specific working hours may cause added compensable hours, consisting overtime and more easily via social media usage (Borgatti, Everett & Johnson, 2018).

Conclusion

An organization can easily establish a presence of so many social media channels but none of these platforms will assist them to gain consumers without any proper investment of effort and time. A Facebook page when unattended or feeds on Twitter can leave a bad impression on potential consumers and further cause the business to lose customers and followers. Businesses must also consider the resources right before growing a social media marketing tool to make sure that they get attention and frequent communication required to embrace social media in an effective manner (Borgatti, Everett & Johnson, 2018).

After evaluating all the benefits and drawback of social networks, the company which discusses their interest in social media, came up with many pieces of advice concerned with the use of social networks.

Initially, it is important to keep a check on the social media functions and every kind of online interaction about the businesses (Borgatti, Everett & Johnson, 2018). This will make employees be more vigilant with the ways they approach social media. Second important point is that one must not accept the bullying and the sharing of personal information must be done carefully by every employee since it somehow represents the wrong reputation of the business.

Reference

Aljabre, A. 2012. Cloud computing for increased business value. International Journal of Business and social science, 3(1).

Borgatti, S. P., Everett, M. G., & Johnson, J. C., 2018. Analyzing social networks. Sage.

Cook, N., 2017. Enterprise 2.0: How social software will change the future of work. Routledge.

Dijkmans, C., Kerkhof, P., & Beukeboom, C. J., 2015. A stage to engage: Social media use and corporate reputation. Tourism Management, 47, 58-67.

Gilbert, C. H. E., 2014. Vader: A parsimonious rule-based model for sentiment analysis of social media text. In Eighth International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM-14). Available at (20/04/16) https://comp. social. gatech. edu/papers/icwsm14. vader. hutto. pdf.

Panahi, S., Watson, J., & Partridge, H., 2016. Social media and physicians: exploring the benefits and challenges. Health informatics journal, 22(2), 99-112.

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R., 2016. Research methods for business: A skill building approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Stelzner, M., 2014. 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Social media examiner, 1-52.

Tan, A. L., 2016. I09 Social Media and Modern Rheumatology Practice: Advantages and Pitfalls. Rheumatology, 55(suppl_1), i2-i2.

Tiago, M. T. P. M. B., & Veríssimo, J. M. C., 2014. Digital marketing and social media: Why bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), 703-708.