Impacts of Social Media on Organizations: A Case Study of Woolworths

This report analyzes the impacts of social media on organizations, using Woolworths as a case study. It discusses the use of social media in improving marketing techniques and employee morale, and suggests communication strategies to be implemented. The report also highlights the benefits of using social media in the workplace and its impact on productivity.

Running head: BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
Business Communication
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Executive Summary
The purpose of the following report is to highlight on the impacts of using the social media for
the improvement of the organizations. The organization chosen for this paper is Woolworths, the
retail giants in Australia. The use of the social media in their operations has become very integral
indeed. The target audience for the use of the social media has been confirmed and the proactive
performance by using the social media will increase the performance graph of the company as
well. The implementation of the social media marketing strategies has been discussed in this
paper.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Background of the issue...................................................................................................................3
Purpose of the report........................................................................................................................3
Topic of the report...........................................................................................................................4
Target audience................................................................................................................................4
Background of the organization.......................................................................................................5
Types of communication strategies to be implemented..................................................................5
Use of the social media at the workplace........................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References and Bibliography...........................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The following report will evaluate the role of the social media in the shaping of the
morale of the employees in the organizations. The organization chosen for this report is
Woolworths. The various issues that come up regarding the de-motivation of the employees will
be discussed over here in this report properly. The main issue for the de-motivation of the
employees is the use of the social media in the workplaces so the employees do not get bored of
the everyday office work and have some entertainment during the off times as well.
Background of the issue
The main background of the issue is the fact that the employees in the chosen
organization are not allowed to use the social media during the time of their works (Tuten &
Solomon, 2017). It has been seen that most of the employees in the organization are sometimes
get bored of doing the official works all through the day without having much freedom to do any
work for their entertainment purpose. In fact this has impacted the overall productivity of the
organization as well. This is why the organization is suffering the losses in the recent times. The
marketing techniques of the organization are failing and the employees in the scompany are not
able to communicate socially (Tuten & Solomon, 2017).
Purpose of the report
The main purpose of the report is mainly to make an analysis of the use of the social
media in the organizations and the improvement of the marketing techniques because of that as
well. The communication between the employees and the customers is very important and in the
current global context, the social media is considered as one of the most important channels for
making effective communication (Mangan, 2017). The actual purpose of this report is to make a

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thorough analysis of the several marketing techniques that will be helpful to handle the different
kinds of tasks.
Topic of the report
The main topic of the report will be to highlight on the usefulness of the social media in
the workplaces (Mangan, 2017). It has to be mentioned that the organizations in the current times
have inclined towards the use of the social media within the workplaces. It must be said that the
organizations must let the employees use the social media because the organizations will be
highly benefitted as they will be able to gain the important information about all the things that
are happening all around (Sánchez Abril, Levin & Del Riego, 2012). The social media marketing
has turned out to be one of the biggest ways of marketing in this modern competitive business
environment. The organizations want to communicate with their customers to know about their
likes and dislikes. Then they will be able to prepare the products. If the employees of
Woolworths begin to communicate with the customers through social media marketing, this will
be helpful for them indeed (Sánchez Abril, Levin & Del Riego, 2012).
Target audience
The target audience for this plan should be the people who are associated with the
organization and the active employees. It is because these are the only people who deal with the
customers directly (Sánchez Abril, Levin & Del Riego, 2012). If they are allowed to connect
with the customers and communicate directly, this will be a huge help for them. They will be
able to report this matter directly to their higher authorities. This will indeed be a great success
for them if they achieve their target of meeting the demands and requirements of the customers
effectively.

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Background of the organization
Woolworths is considered as one of the largest retail supermarkets in Australia. It has a
worldwide presence (Woolworths.com.au, 2018). The company is located at Bella Vista in New
South Wales, Australia. The grocery store chain owned by Woolworths is definitely one of the
largest indeed. The total number of employees in this organization is 111,000
(Woolworths.com.au, 2018). The company is a very famous and favored brand to the customers
indeed. The grocery chain of Woolworths is controlled by their parent company Woolworths
Limited. The foundation year of the company was 1924 (Woolworths.com.au, 2018).
Types of communication strategies to be implemented
The communication system can be interpreted in two ways. One is the communication
between the employees and the customers and the seconds one is between the higher level
managers and their subordinates. The communication system is indeed very important since this
will make the entire process go very smooth indeed. In Woolworths, some communication
strategies should be implemented like the verbal communication between the employees and the
managers and the non-verbal communication using the social media platforms (Erdoğmuş &
Cicek, 2012). This kind of communication system will indeed be very important for the
organization. The marketing process will become easy, faster and very effective. This is why the
implementation of the social media marketing is very important in Woolworths. On the other
hand, if the co-workers are connected with each other, this will be a huge boost for the
organization to increase the cohesion. This will strengthen the relationship between the
employees and enhance the team work. The organization will surely be benefitted by this. The
communication between the employees through the digital media will be a boon for Woolworths.
They will be able to communicate even faster (Erdoğmuş & Cicek, 2012).

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Use of the social media at the workplace
The use of the social media is a very useful way out to mitigate the several
communication challenges indeed. If the communication between the employees and the
customers of the company Woolworths do not take place properly, this will completely be a
disaster for the overall productivity of the company. The strengthening of the relationship
between the employees and the customers can be improved only by the implementation of the
social media marketing policy (Erdoğmuş & Cicek, 2012).
The employee-employer relationship can thus be improved indeed. Various social media
marketing channels can be used in this scenario like the Google+, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
Linkedin and others. Some important challenges like the transfer of the important record keeping
can be imporved by Woolworths by the use of social media as well (Chaffey, 2016). The fan
following of the company will help in understanding of the basic services that it could provide to
the customers. The referring of the organization to the friends and families of the customers will
also increase the popularity of the organization as well. The records can be transferred through
the various social media apps as well.
Woolworths should always practice the use of the social media channels in order to
improve their effectiveness among the minds of the customers. The use of the technology will
surely increase the growth of the organization (Chaffey, 2016). The customers will feel to be
better engaged with the Woolworths in this scenario as well. Thus use of the social media in the
workplace will continue to be one of the biggest things for the benefit of the company.

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Conclusion
The paper can be concluded by saying that this strategy of using the social media is very
effective since it will involve all the employees and the customers to be engaged properly in this
process. Woolworths has felt that their sales ratio has been going downwards for quite some time
now. This will require including all the stakeholders to engage in the social media marketing
process. The purpose of this will be demonstrate the problems that are faced by the customers
and providing the feedbacks. Thus Woolworths will be able to improve upon their strategy by
connecting with their customers in a stronger way.

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References and Bibliography
Carlson, J. R., Zivnuska, S., Harris, R. B., Harris, K. J., & Carlson, D. S. (2016). Social Media
Use in the Workplace: A Study of Dual Effects. Journal of Organizational and End User
Computing (JOEUC), 28(1), 15-31.
Chaffey, D. (2016). Global social media research summary 2016. Smart Insights: Social Media
Marketing.
Erdoğmuş, İ. E., & Cicek, M. (2012). The impact of social media marketing on brand
loyalty. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 58, 1353-1360.
Mangan, D. (2017). Social Media in the Workplace.
Peoplematters.in. (2018). People Matters - Interstitial Site. [online] Available at:
https://www.peoplematters.in/article/culture/social-media-and-its-effects-on-workplace-
productivity15648?
utm_source=peoplematters&utm_medium=interstitial&utm_campaign=learnings-of-the-
day [Accessed 19 Jul. 2018].
Responsible Social Media Use in the Workplace. (2018). Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZPbJ1NDqX8 ("Responsible Social Media Use in
the Workplace", 2018)
Sánchez Abril, P., Levin, A., & Del Riego, A. (2012). Blurred boundaries: Social media privacy
and the twenty‐first‐century employee. American Business Law Journal, 49(1), 63-124.

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Social Media in the Workplace: Legal, Policy and Productivity Issues. (2018). Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLG9jwgAios ("Social Media in the Workplace:
Legal, Policy and Productivity Issues", 2018)
Tuten, T. L., & Solomon, M. R. (2017). Social media marketing. Sage.
Woolworths.com.au. (2018). {{metaController.metaData.title}}. Retrieved from
https://www.woolworths.com.au/