Business Communication: Analyzing Social Media's Role in the Workplace

This report critically examines the use of social media as a communication tool in the workplace. It references previous research to analyze the benefits, such as cost-effectiveness and efficiency, especially for geographically dispersed teams. The report acknowledges the positive correlation betwe...Read More

Running Head: BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

2BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
Introduction
In this paper, there will be an elaborate discussion about the benefits of using social media platforms as
the means of communication in the workplace. Discussions in paper 1A will be used as references to
provide a critical review of the resources being used along with creating a genuine analysis and a sound
argument.
Discussion
For organizational members who are separated by a considerable amount of distance, communication
through social media provides a communication tool that is very cost effective and efficient (O’Connor,
Schmidt & Drouin, 2016). Since it is an era of globalization, it is easier to find units of work distributed in
remote locations and different time zones. In such situations communicating through social media doesn't
sound like a very bad idea. According to the report of Robertson and Kee (2017), the employees’ use of
social media in the workplace is proportionate with their job satisfaction. Among the engaging
participants in a survey, Facebook was found as the most popular among the existing social media
platforms. However, the utility benefit of social media communication is more based on personal life
rather than organizational communications. The survey also shows that less than 30% of the entire
conversations are related to the organization and the part-time employees are the people who are
communicating the most with their co-workers through social media platforms.
However, there is another argument presented by Razmerita, Kirchner & Nielsen (2016) which claims
that the use of social media platforms in order to communicate within the organization include barriers
that are related to social perspectives. The effectiveness of sharing information is only helpful when it
comes to the information being related to encouragement, enjoyment, sharing of knowledge related to
management practices and also monetary rewards. These areas may include various elements such as
technology, individual perspective, organizational and demographic behaviour. Based on the information
gathered form 114 respondents, arguments can be made that the social factors that are identified work as a
barrier to communication through the social media platforms (Roshan, Warren & Carr, 2016). These
barriers include changes in the pattern of organizational behaviour, lack of adequate time in order to
access the social media platforms and also lack of trust among the employees.
van Zoonen, Verhoeven & Vliegenthart (2017) on the other hand, through the help of personal interviews,
has described the utility benefits of using social media. The management is required to motivate
employees in order for the employees to adopt to this communication practice as a suitable organizational
strategy. There is also an argument that social media platforms are a communicative tool that is still in its
development phase. For the organization, it is important to frame adequate policies in order to render
effective in the mechanism of social media platforms (Stohl et al. 2017). It is a matter of true fact that

3BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
with the progress of the improvements in technology, communication through social media will also
become implemented to communication in both the private and the public sector.
Conclusion
In this paper, there is a detailed elaboration as to what extent is communicating through social media be
fruitful for the organization. For the coming generation, however, communication through social media
platforms in a workplace would be a very common practice.

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References
O’Connor, K. W., Schmidt, G. B., & Drouin, M. (2016). Helping workers understand and follow social
media policies. Business Horizons, 59(2), 205-211.
Razmerita, L., Kirchner, K., & Nielsen, P. (2016). What factors influence knowledge sharing in
organizations? A social dilemma perspective of social media communication. Journal of
Knowledge Management, 20(6), 1225-1246.
Robertson, B. W., & Kee, K. F. (2017). Social media at work: The roles of job satisfaction, employment
status, and Facebook use with co-workers. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 191-196.
Roshan, M., Warren, M., & Carr, R. (2016). Understanding the use of social media by organisations for
crisis communication. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 350-361.
Stohl, C., Etter, M., Banghart, S., & Woo, D. (2017). Social media policies: Implications for
contemporary notions of corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 142(3),
413-436.
van Zoonen, W., Verhoeven, J. W., & Vliegenthart, R. (2017). Understanding the consequences of public
social media use for work. European Management Journal, 35(5), 595-605.