Business Communications Report: Social Media Technology Analysis

This report examines the integration of social media into business communication strategies. It begins by introducing communication technology and its various applications in the workplace, emphasizing the importance of effective communication for maintaining relationships, resolving conflicts, and facilitating decision-making. The report then delves into the advantages and disadvantages of using social media, such as its ability to facilitate quick information sharing and employee engagement, while also addressing potential challenges like security risks and the spread of misinformation. Furthermore, it identifies critical factors for successful implementation, including organizational structure, compatibility, and network effects. Finally, the report provides recommendations for overcoming challenges and maximizing the benefits of social media in business communication, concluding with the idea that social media can improve employee morale and enhance workplace communication.

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Communication Technology and its uses..................................................................................2
Advantages and Disadvantages..................................................................................................3
Factors considered for implementation......................................................................................4
Recommendations......................................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
In today’s time, the use of social media has been increased in the workplace helping
majorly with communication between the staff. Communication helps in maintaining
relationships, avoid conflicts, make it easy while making decisions and solve problems for
smooth working within an organisation. However, there are challenges as well to use social
media as a medium of communication because it requires understanding and knowledge of
using such sites as Facebook and Twitter with information of individuals as well (Leonardi &
Vaast, 2017). This report is going tell about the communication technology and its
importance of using it in the workplace through staff. The discussion is going to analyse
advantages and disadvantages of using social media as a communication technology. Further,
the factors are evaluated considered that are necessary in the workplace for implementing
them. Lastly, recommendations are provided to overcome the challenges at the time of
executing communication technologies for businesses.
Communication Technology and its uses
Social Media as a tool of communication technology such as LinkedIn, YouTube,
Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites allows staff to interact and share through
an online source with others. It is a powerful tool with the strengths of quick extension and
distribution that helps in making the ability and content while leading to informal
conversations for the use in workplace (Osterrieder, 2013). Social Media is a technology that
helps in sharing information, ideas, and thoughts through virtual communities and networks
used for rapid electronic communication. In the workplace, employees engage with social
media for interacting as the purpose of doing business and attain an advantage to reach out.
Moreover, it is an indispensable tool for businesses used in companies as a platform to find
and engage with customers, doing promotion and advertising to drive sales, measuring
consumer trends, and offering customer support or service. According to Cao and others,
social media facilitates communication and knowledge while working in the workplace and
motivating employees for building trust and exchange of information to attain common
objective (Cao, Guo, Vogel, & Zhang, 2016).
Thus, social media facilitates communication and enhance interactions between the
staff, also helps in building relationships and understanding. The challenges faced while

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using social media as a communication technology can be falsehoods and misleading
information that have ability to impact in the workplace (Taurasi, 2015). The use of social
media involves elements consisting instant chat and messaging, email, blogs, social
networking, videoconferencing, telecommunications, and forums for the purpose of business
meetings, conversations of staff and presentations. Social media is used in the workplace to
get the work done while communicating. The impact of technology is beneficial in business
through social media for solving issues rapidly even after the geographic distance that also
increases productivity. Thus, social media is a powerful tool according to Holland and others
that enhance the workplace even after considering challenges by examining relationships
using social media and job satisfaction with the understanding of staff (Holland, Cooper, &
Hecker, 2016).
Advantages and Disadvantages
In business, social media has a beneficial impact as using such kind of technology
removes the element of interacting face-to-face and might cause social isolation. It makes
easy for the employees to work without being on-call most of the time and getting stresses.
Also, they can easily detach themselves from work and enjoy their personal life as well
maintaining a balance between the both, and not to result in lower levels of productivity
(Baruah, 2012). The advantages of social media are delivering internal communications,
employees’ engagement, networking with a professional perspective, market communicating
while occurrence of issues, aid in recruitment, and promoting knowledge sharing and social
learning in the workplace. Meanwhile, the disadvantages of social media are issue of security,
potential loss of productivity, harassment, legal violations, and negative exposure, and hour
and wage problems (Miller-Merrell, 2013).
Social media enables employees to connect in the workplace with others and creates
community while engaging and building relationships. Communication online through social
media or any other source save time and speed, and makes it easy to transfer information
rapidly and cheaply. It helps in creating jobs for individuals; bring employees closer and
helps in economic growth. Also, it is cost effective and improves education sector, helps in
gaining more business opportunities with the elimination in the cultural gap. But, other
disadvantages covered are unemployment due to redundancies, outsourcing, and downsizing;
privacy issues, lack of job security, and overruling cultures as well. Thus, social media is

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making communication better and strengthen the power of staff in the workplace (Willis,
2017).
Factors considered for implementation
In the companies, there are factors that lead to the execution of adopting social media
for achieving communication between the staff. The advantage of social media is under the
formalized organisational structure through which companies work while adopting
innovation. It is understandable that social media is promoting a new form of communication
through using services and tools available on the Internet for individuals. There can be direct
relationship through networking between the people at work (Weaver, Lindsay, & Gitelman,
2012). Further, it is a solution for numerous issues that can be problematic such as
distribution of information to the workforce. It requires help of new methods in business
practices, external relations or workplace organisation of the company for innovation. Also, it
is essential to develop implementation strategies based on adoption supporting social media.
The decision is made by individuals or the company with using innovation enabling
Internet as a primary driver of industrial productivity. The structure of TOE (Technology
Organization and Environment) is developed to analyse the organizational adoption of
technological innovation. Thus, the factors considered are compatibility, relative advantage,
size and structure of an organization, observability, innovativeness, and uncertainty also
including network externality and competitive pressure (Araújo & Zilber, 2016).
Recommendations
To recommend, it is essential to have communication between the staff to share and
interact through social media for maintaining relationships and work efficiently. In the
workplace, social media is a platform where employees can engage for the success of the
company through learning and internal communications. It can be used in many other aspects
as well for improving customer satisfaction and enhancing productivity to attain better
outcomes (Social Media, 2011). Thus, it helps in activating employees using tools such as
reward platforms, gamification and socialization. And, selecting social media as an employee
engagement platform is complicated but helps in improving employee’s incentives,
communication, rewards, and collaboration that are worth investing with plenty of user
analytics for success in the workplace.

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Conclusion
To conclude, using social media in the workplace make employees to shows their
specific cultures through the company, promoting community, maintaining the transparency
and attracting new talent. It requires efforts for making staff interact to each other but taking
it as a responsibility can help in making them participate. Moreover, using social media by
employees can make business easy even from geographic distance and maintains the
understanding between the two but only challenge need to face is understanding. The
activities performed can define what should and should not require to be shared. Lastly, it
makes connection easier and better with the ability of powerful social media to improve the
morale and communication between the staff in the workplace.

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References
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Baruah, T. (2012). Effectiveness of Social Media as a tool of communication and its potential
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Scientific and Research Publications, 2(5), 1-10.
Cao, X., Guo, X., Vogel, D., & Zhang, X. (2016). Exploring the influence of social media on
employee work performance. Internet Research, 26(2), 529-545.
Holland, P., Cooper, B., & Hecker, R. (2016). Use of social media at work: a new form of
employee voice? The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(21),
2621-2634.
Leonardi, P., & Vaast, E. (2017). Social media and their affordances for organizing: A review
and agenda for research. Academy of Management Annals, 11(1), 150-188.
Miller-Merrell, J. (2013, November 13). The Power of Social Media for Workplace
Communication & Distribution. Retrieved from Workology:
https://workology.com/social-media-enterprise-communciation/
Osterrieder, A. (2013). The value and use of social media as communication tool in the plant
sciences. Plant Methods, 9(1), 26.
Social Media. (2011, October 30). ICT and Social Media: Definitional Issues and the
Relationship. Retrieved from Social Media:
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issues-and-the-relationship/
Taurasi, L. (2015, July 6). 7 Ways to Use Social Media for Employee Communications.
Retrieved from Workplace Care: https://workplace.care.com/7-ways-to-use-social-
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Weaver, B., Lindsay, B., & Gitelman, B. (2012). Communication Technology and Social
Media: Opportunities and Implications for Healthcare Systems. The Online Journal of

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Issues in Nursing, 17(3).
Willis, A. (2017, August 15). 6 Ways Social Media Changed The Way We Communicate.
Retrieved from circa: https://circaedu.com/hemj/how-social-media-changed-the-way-
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