MGT502 Business Communication: Social Media in Business - Google

This report examines the utilization of social media networks in business communication, highlighting both their advantages and disadvantages. It emphasizes the cost-effectiveness and ease of use of social media platforms like Facebook, Skype, and cloud-based applications for multinational companies needing to connect with geographically dispersed offices. While social media enhances communication speed, efficiency, and employee engagement, it also presents challenges such as potential leaks of confidential information and decreased employee concentration. The report further explores Google's approach to social media in the workplace, focusing on its open culture and the use of platforms like Google+ for internal communication, employee performance analysis, and fostering learning and development. It also addresses the management's role in mitigating risks associated with social media use, such as data breaches and negative feedback, while leveraging its benefits for innovation and global communication.

Running head: MGT502 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
MGT502 Business Communication
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Executive Summary
This report focuses on the use of social media networks in the business communication and their
advantages and disadvantages. Social media networks are an integral part of the business
communication as this technology is cost-effective and easy to use. For the multinational
business company, headquarter has to contact with the offices situated in the different locations,
in this scenario, social media platforms like Facebook, Skype and Cloud-Based applications
assist to do the same. The advantage of social media business communication is user-friendly
and the communication can be done in written, verbal and visual ways. The management can
share the video and printed document as well. The management can contact the employees for
24*7. In addition, Google workplace allows the employees to use the social media platforms as it
clears the outlook of open culture in Google. Employees can kill time on social media platforms
and they can leak the confidential information. The con of using social media platform in the
workplace is splitting the time and lack of concentration of the employees. Google management
has taken the positive perspective of social media platform so that the employees can be
engaged.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Use social media networks in business communication..................................................................4
Advantages of using social media in business communication.......................................................6
Challenges of using social media in business communication........................................................7
Use of social media in Google workplace as part of business communication...............................8
Management’s role in using social media in the workplace............................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
Reference List................................................................................................................................12

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Topic: Usage of social media in business communication and its pros and cons of using digital
media platforms: Study based on Google
Introduction
The business world has been changing drastically using the modern technologies in the
workplace. It is very necessary to stay in communication with the employees and social media
are using as the mode of communication between the employees and customers. According to
Langer (2014), rather than just posting the information about services and products, the
companies are using social media for the business communication with customers and with the
employees. Social media engage the clients and social media communication is inexpensive.
Through social media, business communication can be done in a very easy way as maximum
employees and customers use social media platform on daily basis. The aim of the report is to
highlight the usage of social media in business communication and explore the pros and cons of
using the digital media platform. Google is one of the largest organisations in the world and
Google innovates the social media concept along with using social media to track the employees’
performance and rewarding the employees as well.
Use social media networks in business communication
Role of social media in business communication is about establishing the conversation
with the customers and the organisations. Companies can successfully use social media to drive
the traffic to the website, drive sales and find the employees and to build the clients’ community.
Social media can be used to make the marketing masterpiece to communicate with the customers
so that the organisational sales and branding can be improved. According to Bolton et al., (2013),
social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn help to make more

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connections for them by sharing the details. The organisations can also use the social media sites
to have the own broadcast network and for doing the social media campaigns. In the previous
time, the customers take time to share the experiences about the products and services, however,
in recent time, the people can share their views about the products or the campaigning of the
companies on social media in no time. Through the social media, the businesses can have the
chance to respond to the customers and acknowledge the complaints. In addition, the business
organisations use social media platforms as building the brand image as sometimes the
companies allow the employees to post the blogs to appear the companies more compassionate
and likeable. Social media help the customers to share their concerns about the companies as in
Twitter and Facebook, the businesses are never closed. In recent time, 68% of adults use social
media in 2018, compared to 7% in the year 2005 (Youtu.be, 2018). Maximum numbers of people
use a mobile device to access the social media and in 2017, almost 2 million businesses use
Facebook advertising for promotions of the services and products.
The businesses use social media to communicate with the customers as the social media
give lower costs for posting advertisements and social media can hit the targeted customers. The
companies in recent time are using social media analytics (Leonardi, Huysman & Steinfield,
2013) as these provide real-time performance analysis of the advertisements. On the other side,
the companies can use social media for providing training and education to the employees by
sharing video links. Some of the companies use social media intranet software which is useful
for the companies in establishing communication. Zoho and Bitrix24 are such types of cloud
software and SaaS application based platform used by the companies so that the companies can
use for communication with the employees.

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Advantages of using social media in business communication
The US-based companies do not allow the employees to use social media platforms in the
workplace; however, some of the large organisations like Mayo Clinic, USAA and Deloitte
allow the employees to use the social media platform to represent their customers' issues, brand
online and creating online content. The companies can use the social media platform to
communicate with the employees so that they can unlock the expertise and knowledge of the
employees. The management will get to know about the employees' social networks, internal
blogs and forums which can provide the valuable information about the companies. According to
Majchrzak et al., (2013), social media platforms help the employees to unleash the innovation of
diverse thinking and the creativity of the employees. The employees can conduct the virtual
brainstorm in the social media and these platforms generate leads and revenues by sharing the
marketing message. The employees can pass the message which can assist the employees to
advocate the services so that it can boost the bottom line as well.
Social media increases the communication speed, efficiency and agility inside the
workplace and social media reduce the chance of misinformation shared by the management.
The management can easily let the employees know during the period of crisis (Treem &
Leonardi, 2013). Social media platform can help the employees to strengthen the culture of the
workplace and the employees can with other employees’ interests and talents so that they can
make stronger workplace relationships. Most importantly, the companies can share the
information and notice through social media which can eliminate the global and regional
communication barriers (Vaast & Kaganer, 2013). Social media communication helps to break
the silos among the department, time zones and borders. In addition, millennial communicate
through social media platforms and this practice helps to recruit and retain top talents. Most

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importantly, social media reinforce the values, mission and strategies of the organisation which
provide endless advantages and motivation to the employees and the management to create
creative and fresh ways.
Challenges of using social media in business communication
Through social media, the employees can share the confidential information and the
organisational secret may get leaked. Therefore, the management must take preventive measure
to stop the mistreating of the data and information. Social media accounts of the employees may
get hacked and the secret information of the organisation might be in trouble. According to
Williams et al., (2015), the organisation needs to commit resources to control the social media
presence and produce the new contact. The organisation needs to respond to the feedback from
the employees and the customers; therefore, the management needs to have accurate resources to
handle the matter. Therefore, the organisation can make the PR team and the training of the staffs
is needed. The organisation needs to recruit new staffs so that they can manage the social media
for the customers (Swani et al., 2017). The management needs to answer the queries of the
employees and the organisations can invest in paid advertising. The management needs resources
so that they can create the image or video for content. In addition, the management needs to
evaluate the social media success on the basis of quantifying the data on Return-on-Investment in
terms of sales online and in the training improvement of the employees. ROI can be calculated
by the management and there are some less tangible advantages of social media communication.
The companies can improve the communication in both levels, employees and with customers
(Jussila, Kärkkäinen & Aramo-Immonen, 2014). The brand awareness of the organisation can be
improved and the organisation can use social media analytics to understand the reputation, brand
awareness and customers’ interaction with the company.

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Social media platforms need daily monitoring and the actors manage social media platform can
provide benefits only. The management can use social ineffectively. Social media network can
be used to push the sales without just engaging the customers and to answer the negative
feedback. As opined by Cardon & Marshall (2015), the organisations have greater exposure in
online platform through social media risks are associated with information leaking, negative
feedback and harassment or bullying of the employees.
Use of social media in Google workplace as part of business communication
Google is a tech giant and it is the market leader as Search Engine providing the most up
to date and relevant information to the users. Google uses an algorithm and it assists in being
tweaked and updated. Google uses the right set of complex algorithm to get the right links. The
popular links come at first and Google also gives the social media links to find the content as
well (Fuchs, 2017). Google keeps employees happy and productive. Google provides the
employee's pool table, the right amount of perks and bowling alleys, gym membership and free
food. Not only that, the communication of the employees is done through the intranet social
media within the workplace. Communication inside the workplace and among the employees is
done through Google+ and the technologically advanced Google intranet software. Google
management thinks that lateral thinking, as well as the ability to communicate with the
employees, is the crucial skill of the employees within the organisation (Kernbach, Eppler &
Bresciani, 2015). Google thinks that employees must be creative as entrepreneurs and the
employees must share the communication like open culture workplace. Communication is very
important as Google workplace is the conjunction of technology, science, engineering and
mathematics.

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Google allows the employees to use social media in the workplace like other modern
technologies so that the employees can connect with their family and friends' environment.
Social media allows the employees to take a mental break from the daily monotony and these
types of periodic break help the employees to come up with fresh energy. As mentioned by
Sunstein (2018), 34% of the employees use social media in the workplace to take a mental break
and 26% of the employees use social media to connect with friends and family. Cloud-based
social networking sites help the employees to communicate effectively beyond the phones and
emails. Google use these platforms to interact with the employees and these allow the
conversation to be open to all employees (Killian & McManus, 2015). Most importantly, social
media platforms provide Google with an analysis of employees' communication and performance
along with trends. Using the social media, the management of Google fosters learning, self-
development and discovery.
Management’s role in using social media in the workplace
Google is a technologically developed organisation and Google itself has social
networking platforms like Hangouts and Google+. Google needs to invest in social media as the
management has to recognise the value of the social media communication in the workplace
(Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2016). Google needs to act like a social media platform is a real-life
networking event to respond, listen, provide conversation and monitor the activities of the
people. Google management can provide content and the employees can inject personality on the
social media page. For Google, the social media communication strategies must be two; one is
for the clients and another is for the employees.

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Google must start blogging as the blog is an excellent platform to take this as a business
communication strategy. The blog provides effective communication with the clients and it
bypasses the media to share insights into the business. Google can play the role of the tech-
industry expert and establishes the relationship with the clientele. The blogging content of
Google must be related to the technology with quality to engage the readers.
Workplace-based intranet social media can improve the networking of the employees as
the fellow employees will get to know about other employees and their qualities and expertise.
Attending network can provide advantages to build up the new clientele make contact and make
new connections for growth. Google management can share their voice through intranet social
media for announcing any events or delivering any notice.
Google must understand the needs of IT and staffing to implement the social media
platform as it opens the company outside the firewall. Google needs to make sure to protect the
information and data from the social media platform. The PR team of Google needs to
implement social media policy and activity from the top down.
Conclusion
In recent time, communication in the workplace happens through online, email, Skype,
Facebook and cloud-based software. Using these communication channels for means of
connecting with the employees and clients should be done in right pace and order to be effective.
For a large organisation like Google, social media channels would be most effective for business
communication as headquarter can easily communicate with regional offices and different
location based offices easily using social media communication tools. In addition, allowing

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employees to use social media at the workplace opens up workplace culture and it is about
building a relationship with employees and trusting them.

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Reference List
Bolton, R. N., Parasuraman, A., Hoefnagels, A., Migchels, N., Kabadayi, S., Gruber, T., ... &
Solnet, D. (2013). Understanding Generation Y and their use of social media: a review
and research agenda. Journal of service management, 24(3), 245-267.
Cardon, P. W., & Marshall, B. (2015). The hype and reality of social media use for work
collaboration and team communication. International Journal of Business
Communication, 52(3), 273-293.
Forbes.com (2018) Social Media Proves to Boost Employee Engagement retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/02/13/social-media-proves-to-
boost-employee-engagement/#66dba05a4db5
Fuchs, C. (2017). Social media: A critical introduction. London: Sage.
Jussila, J. J., Kärkkäinen, H., & Aramo-Immonen, H. (2014). Social media utilization in
business-to-business relationships of technology industry firms. Computers in Human
Behavior, 30, 606-613.
Kernbach, S., Eppler, M. J., & Bresciani, S. (2015). The use of visualization in the
communication of business strategies: An experimental evaluation. International Journal
of Business Communication, 52(2), 164-187.
Killian, G., & McManus, K. (2015). A marketing communications approach for the digital era:
Managerial guidelines for social media integration. Business Horizons, 58(5), 539-549.