The Role Of Social Media In Knowledge Sharing, Building Social Capital, And Supporting Innovation

Social Media

1.How can social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter be used to improve?

2.knowledge sharing, build social capital, support innovation?

Today’s whole world is connected by the Social Media and it has slowly become the integral part of our life. Social Media is considered the best medium for entertainment but the limit of social media is not restricted to that only (Leonardi, Huysman & Steinfield, 2013). Its limit is endless. From common man to business person also use the social media to promote their brand because with the help of Social media, they can promote their brand internationally. And this promotion process is very much cost effective as with minimum cost, they can share it to the whole world (Tess, 2013). It is also used as the medium for knowledge sharing where companies can educate their employees and customers. Social media also helps in establishing the social capital which can help companies immensely. With social media, companies can support innovation by funding the R&D projects or any new startups and later they can make an agreement. It also helps in problem solving that if any customer is facing any problem, the person can directly connect with the company’s official page and can get instant help. The only drawback of using the social media is the it is prone to hacks that any unauthorized person will take the control over their official page and will restrict them to help others.

The following report is about interaction of companies with the help of Social Media and how they use it for knowledge sharing, increase social capital, support innovation and also help in solving problem. The report also discuss about the drawbacks of using the social media.

Social Media is a medium through which people of different countries and background connect with each other. It is a collective of online channels for communication which is fully dedicated to the community of people where interaction, content sharing and collaboration occur. Social Media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Social media is gradually becoming the integral part of human life as they find it more refreshing and stress free area. With the help of Social media, many companies have also been benefitted from that in promoting their brands. With the help of social media analytics, better business decisions can be made by collecting data from blogs and social media websites. Social media is generally used by companies to see what people think about them and how good their services are (Gibbs et al., 2015). Social media also helps in giving exposure to companies so that they can get the correct exposure and broaden their customer reach. Social media helps in creating a page where people are invited and likes their page. It is also a kind of business strategy where they conduct their survey and communicate with their customers who liked their page. Also social media gives a platform to customers to interact with their favorite brand and can know much more about them. Social media helps the company to get feedbacks about their product so that they can change it accordingly and also they can know how the customers feel using their products. There are some problems in Social media that it is prone to cyber attacks where their official page can be hacked and offensive messages can be posted which can result in unsatisfied customer experience.

About the chosen company

7-Eleven is a retail store which has many branches offshore. The franchisee and licensed stores are run by the brands and the number varies over 56,000 and in over 18 countries (Ngai, Tao & Moon, 2015). Chain of stores run by 7-Eleven was earlier known as Tote’m Stores until it was renamed by 7-Eleven. The reason behind the company’s name is that the store remains open from 7:00 Am to 11:00 pm and also the store remains open for 7 days in a week. The reason behind the store’s popularity is that it remains open even at times when other stores are closed thus the customers could get whatever they want at any time (Klausen, 2015). 

Social Media in Knowledge Sharing

There is a taboo among people that social media only means a medium of entertainment but uses of Social media are countless (Trainor et al., 2014). They are not only meant for entertainment rather they are used for knowledge sharing too. With the help of social media, information can be shared and circulated around the whole world just within few hours. With the help of Social media, 7-Eleven can educate their customers about the products and information exchange also takes place. Social media helps in transferring the knowledge to every part of the world without even moving from your place (Ellison, Gibbs & Weber, 2015). Knowledge sharing can help any organization to attract more customers which will gradually benefit the company (Aral, Dellarocas & Godes, 2013). With the help of knowledge sharing, they can tell their customers about their new products and can also give some glimpses of their new product in their line of manufacturing. With this, employees can increase their expertise. It is the lowest cost medium of transferring any form of messages to a large group of people and is also the fasted medium too. By taking the organizational factors into consideration, organizations can improve the condition of knowledge sharing (Saffer, Sommerfeldt & Taylor, 2013).  If there are any changes to be made in the piece of information, then it can be done easily and still it can reach to other people in no time.

Social Capital is the term where value of social relationships and networks that gives the economical growth to the organization is measured. Social media helps any company to get the social capital as many other organizations are also connected through the social media so they can exchange information and ideas and also can discuss about the future of their companies which they can implement to attract more customers (Tuten & Solomon, 2014). With the help of social media, they can also know what other rival companies are up to and they can take cues from them to improve their business strategies. Social capital is very vital as it ensures trust among the co-workers, their satisfaction level and also the type of communication that occurs mainly between the peers, seniors and subordinates (Majchrzak et al., 2013). Social Capital also ensures the efficient working of employee. Main aim of social capital is to meet the organizational goals the best way possible. Twitter is the best example of creating the social capital as it includes all the groups like family, friendship, work, teams and many more. Building trust among the groups is very much important as it helps in co-ordination in different tasks. Social Capital basically works with heterogeneous group of people that is people of different backgrounds so that it can build a community that will make the work easier to do. Social capital also helps in creating a large group of people of different fields so that they can help each other when needed. Social media plays a great medium to have social capital (Nah & Saxton, 2013).

Social Media in Knowledge Sharing

Social media can be proved as an excellent way to support and transfer information in each part of the organization. It is an incredible way to reach out to customers and take innovative ideas from them. Social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIN  and Twitter are great means of being in touch with the customers and also it helps the employees of the company to be in contact with each other (Anduiza, Cristancho & Sabucedo, 2014). There are two ways to involve the company’s network in development of new products and services. They are crowd sourcing and open innovation. In the process of crowd sourcing, the problem is shard in a particular area or group and the query is asked to be resolved by the members of the group. In the process of open innovation, the members of the company are asked to resolve a query and post it individually. There are various advantages of social media in the innovation. The advantages include-

The creativity and wisdom of people outside of the workplace can be gained. Several queries can be posted online and various people can solve it (Kent, 2013). The most innovative response has to be chosen adding creativity in the company’s products and services. If this is not done, the company has to be dependent on the previous ideas and hence the company will be deprived of the new and innovative ideas from the innovative minds. The innovation can also be posted online which will attract more customers to the company. Feedbacks can be taken online from different customers and thus the company can know about the changes that has to be made in the firm for better growth. The company can also post the ideas regarding the product and ask customers to choose the best among it and thus increasing transparency.  

Social media brings people together and hence, it can be proved as a great tool for problem solving. The ways in which social media can be used in problem solving are-

If any problem occurs in the organization then it can be resolved using social media. The problem can be posted on the social media sites and the employees or the customers can be asked to slove the query. This way, the organization can get several ways to resolve the query. New and innovative minds will provide solutions and thus will provide effective results to solve the problem. There are various types of problems which arise in the organization on huge basis. If any employee faces problem in the organization regarding anything, he/she can post the problem on the social media site and thus can get huge support from other employees, the higher authorities can also know about the problem easily, and thus the problem can be solved within very short period of time. the higher authorities can also convey messages through social media sites and thus the message will be conveyed in a very short span of time and without any delay.

Social Media in building of Social Capital

There are various risks that are associated with the use of social media in an organization. Those risks are-

Use of social media results in lack of long duration motivation from the participants. In the traditional procedure, making any change or approving anything in the organization requires lot of paperwork. However, if social media is used, every change is made quickly and thus there is no prove of the change which can be harmful for the organization for the future purpose (Huang, Baptista & Galliers, 2013). The organization has to face difficulty in management of projects of large scale and thus posing harmful effects on the company. Sometimes it happens that the authority is trying to create a social presence but the employees are not interested in it and thus wasting the time of authority. The biggest threat is that sometimes people pretend to be other people and post n their behalf. Thus, the information provided by the attacker can be fatal for the company’s environment. At times, it also may happen that an individual has to say something important and thus, he/she may need attention but might be ignored.

Conclusion

Hence from the above discussion it is concluded that, social Media is considered the best medium for entertainment but the limit of social media is not restricted to that only. Its limit is endless. From common man to business person also use the social media to promote their brand because with the help of Social media, they can promote their brand internationally. Social media can help a firm to promote the business in different ways.  It is also a kind of business strategy where they conduct their survey and communicate with their customers who liked their page. It helps in knowledge sharing, building of social capital, supports innovation in the firm and helps in the solving of many problems. There are various risks associated with social media as well.

References

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