Social media addiction has positive and negative effects in the business world. Firm's globally gain from social media by reaching out to new prospective buyers. It can allow businesses to recognize future demand and to react to it timely.
Advertising is the cash cow for social media networks. To understand how firms around the world mutually benefit from these advertisements, we must understand the concept of the social capital theory. Social capital is the perceived trustworhiness of information shared amongst members of social communities (virtual in our case). Businesses are taking advantage of the social media networks' abilities to build a strong social capital for themselves.
CRM is a large asset to the firm which can benefit directly from positive social capital. Social media greatly enhances a firm's ability to learn how the customer feels about their products or services. This advantage can allow the firm to quickly adapt to any inefficiencies in it's services. This can be very important because it is cheaper to retain a customer than it is to gain a new one.
Social media can be a double-edged sword for the firm, unfortunately. Firm's productivity can suffer from worker's distractions due to their social media addictions. Breaches of companies' online securitiy has occurred as well, because of careless sharing of information across social media networks. The aggregate misuse of social medias in the workplace can be detrimental to a firm.
Businesses must learn to find a middle ground with social media usage for the future because it's usage is increasing enormously.While firm's can gain revenues from social media, it can lose revenues from distractions in the workplace as well.
ProCon.org."Are Social Networking Sites Good For Our Society?" ProCon.org.(12 Dec. 2012): Web. 2 Mar. 2013. http://www.procon.org/headline.php?headlineID=005134.
Rodriguez, Michael, Robert M. Peterson, and Vijaykumar Krishnan. "Social Media's Influence On Business-To-Business Sales Performance." Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. 32.3 (2012): 365-378. Business Source Complete. Web. 1 Mar. 2013. http://ehis.ebscohost.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=b46fe0c8-561a-4d0d-af9d-c5c9925d9168%40sessionmgr15&vid=6&hid=17.
I think that the only way a company can stop employees from misusing the internet is to block it. The temptation of checking facebook or twitter is usually for the average human. I like you blog.
ReplyDeleteJAMES TODD
I agree that companies will certainly have to find some way to block employee access to unproductive sites during work hours; people can't seem to control their urges to logon even when their job performance reflects.
ReplyDeleteI agree that companies should monitor or block social media. But, even blocking on their systems most of us still have access at our fingertips in the form of smart phones. Can they demand those be turned off?
ReplyDeleteI understand that social media can be addicting, but if an employee is truly addicted they can still access it via their smart phone or tablet. An employer blocking the use is only making them go elsewhere just like any other addiction. It is far more beneficial for employers to use social media. The cost benefits, in my opinion definitely outweigh the possible consequence of loss of productivity. Also it is occasionally good for employees to take a break from their work, it can be very refreshing to just see what else is going on the world. It can allow for brainstorming among different groups too, that they may not be able to access otherwise. Just wanted to make a point that it can be positive for an employer as well as a negative.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it would be beneficial to employers to incorporate social media into the workplace; as long as its' usage doesn't get out of control. True addicts will, as you said, find other ways to access their social networks; so why try fighting a losing battle of monitoring. Use the social media networks in your business strategy if at all possible.
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