Impact of Social Media on Contemporary Business Communication: A Case Study of Microsoft

Running head: INTERPERSONAL AND E-COMMUNICATION
Interpersonal and e-communication
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1INTERPERSONAL AND E-COMMUNICATION
Communication is the integral part of the business that determines the relationship with
the stakeholders internally. Externally, communication is important to explain people about the
products and services and how it may fit into their life. Social media is changing the nature of
communication that takes place in business. The aim of the essay is to discuss the impact of
social media on the contemporary business communication. There is a continuous evolution of
the technological advances in the business communication. Social media tool has played a great
role in the success of the business. The tool has changed the external and internal communication
system of the business. Businesses today have become more open, democratic and participatory
than before. Such changes have been previously unforseen in business sector (Wollschlaeger et
al. 2017). For this purpose the essay uses the case study of Microsoft social media marketing as
obtained from the www.forbes.com. According to the Forbes’s news in 2017 Microsoft has
changed the science of sales. The news highlighted that the company is “using LinkedIn to take
on salesforce.com” (Evans 2018). In regards to the case study the essay explains the way social
media changes have impacted the operations of the modern business. Further the essay discusses
the fundamental opportunities and challenges that social media creates for the modern
businesses.
There were great challenges to business communication 20 years ago. For instance,
difficulty communicating with people from different cultural backgrounds, problems with long
emails and queues, poor availability for 24*7 calls. However, it is easy now to tweet 24*7 even
out of office a concept absent 20 years ago. With online communication it is less a burden to
travel places. Customers can now communicate from home rather than operating through
desktops. There is more engagement with people than before with SQL integrations and

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Google+. In a minute there is bulk of data generated currently, than 20 years ago. The credit goes
to social media (Baruah 2012).
Social media positively impacts the business communication with customers. According
to Dong and Wu (2015) employees are believed to be the most credible source of information by
41% of the response in the 2013 survey. Employees can share the right message with the use of
the online advocacy platform like Bambu. Microsoft corporation one of the world’s biggest
technological companies has incorporated the social media tool in its daily business for
improving communication with customers. Social media helps improve a business by enhancing
the responsiveness of the stakeholders. It eases the way the customer can give and take
feedbacks. Business can easily view complaints and deal with it rapidly (Jussila et al. 2014).
According to Baruah, (2012) social media improves the communication and branding system. By
engaging with the customers at deeper level through social profiles and websites and improves
the branding efforts. It will allow the prospective customer to better identify the brand
characteristics.
Microsoft has created the social media management software system that was the cause
of the company’s advancement. Microsoft has adopted the social media system for employee
involvement, product development, and customer engagement. Use of the social program
called “Microsoft Teams” the whole company is well connected with the trams and it has
facilitated a strong collaboration. It helped the company to take its productivity to new stage.
The communication system has improved as this program allows the individual members of the
specific team to access the “file share tab” (Fox, 2018). The company also developed the
“Microsoft Social Command Center” that helps to direct the customers and manage them in right
location. They can grab the social opportunities by over viewing all the social channels. It

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helped the company to engage with the customers in authentic ways and shifted through the
social chatter. Thus, social media impact the business communication positively by creating a
social environment between business and customers. By using Sprinklr like platform, a large
team at Microsoft manages its each product by planning, listening, driving paid media and
engaging across 150 channels (Sprinklr 2017). The social engagement are quickly monitored and
navigated by the command centre team just by keyword searches. It is easy for the members to
address queries through personal handles (Fox 2018).
Wang et al. (2012) argued that social media has changed the nature of marketing in the
contemporary business. When compared to the blanket marketing approach the nature of the
social networking platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook triggers greater response from the
customers. It has improved the process of marketing the products and services without
overwhelming the customers. It is way easier to spread the word about the business by
strategically placing the advertisements. When compared to traditional marketing, social media
has changed the way of finding the potential customers using the keywords and hashtags. This,
social media is an efficient approach to track the competitors as this tool is very informative. It is
easy to interpret the factors affecting the industry. Social media increases the online presence as
internet has become the integral part of every person’s daily lives. It allows the customers to
make purchasing decisions, which has great impact on the advertisement and marketing.
However, it is affordable as there is no need of extensive budget even when competing with
other popular brands.
Microsoft has integrated the social media into the public relation strategy. It allows the
customers to think about the business positively. In case of Microsoft the use of LinkedIn and
Facebook gave the customers the opportunity to engage with each other. It gave the business the