BIZ101 Business Communication: Social Media in the Workplace Report

This report analyzes the role of social media in business communication, examining its impact on employee interactions, engagement, and overall workplace dynamics. It explores the advantages, such as enhanced employee connections, streamlined information sharing, and improved team collaboration through platforms like chat apps, video conferencing, and internal social media. The report also highlights the disadvantages, including potential distractions, privacy concerns, and the risk of decreased interpersonal communication. The report discusses the perspective of business leaders on the use of social media, its impact on formal communication, and the need for balanced and strategic implementation. The report references key research and provides a comprehensive overview of social media's influence on modern business communication practices, offering valuable insights for businesses seeking to leverage these tools effectively.

Running head: BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
Business Communication
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
Social media communication
Social media implies to the means of interactions among the employees where they
share, exchange and create information and ideas in virtual network and communities. It is
meant for connecting the audience and the consumers of the products or ideas of an
organization and in turn helps in building relationships. Social media as a tool in the schools,
colleges, departments and offices creates an engaging environment in the institutions.
Many employees or individuals in an organization with their working often use social media
sites like Twitter LinkedIn Facebook. It’s not only for their recreational use but also for
communicating amongst themselves (Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2016). The new generation of
employees refer chat and messaging apps rather than using the traditional way of sending
emails. There are many chat and messaging apps like Chat bot, Slack and Jabber. They are
very famous among the new generation of employees who prefer chat messaging apps over
the regular emails. Many organizations have their employees located at various parts of the
city and also at various parts across the globe so they need virtual team meetings to get the
job done. Written communication on paper or electronically has many drawbacks such as
there is no face-to- face communication that takes place (Stieglitz & Dang-Xuan, 2013). In
form of written communication, it is impossible to understand the body language and the tone
of voice of the speaker. Thus, many organizations and work teams rely totally on video
conferencing which is done by the use of many social media apps which give them a good
technological environment where the sound and video quality is absolutely clear to help them
communicate. The grapevine is a social media communication app which is used in many
organizations very effectively to listen and learn about the employee issues at all levels
Main purpose of social media communication

2BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
Social media communication is a very important tool for business communication.
With the help of social media, the recruiters in the organization can easily source the top
talents. Social media can also help the sales person in the organization to identify contacts
that has potentiality and also allow employees to keep in touch with their managers in the
organization (Best, Manktelow & Taylor, 2014). The HR team of the organization should
always make sure that the norms and conditions of using social media in the organization is
up to date, ensuring that it is used appropriately by the employees of the organization for
better and efficient communication amongst themselves.
Social media is an easy and efficient way to encourage and motivate employees of an
organization to communicate among themselves even at office and at home. This helps them
to share their ideas and also to get engaged in work even from home (Parveen, Jaafar &
Ainin, 2015). Since social media is available anywhere with the help of the new age internet
system, the employees can easily access all the information available in the internet and
utilize them for the purpose of work.
Advantages and disadvantages of using social media in the organization
The social media being used in organizations and various workplaces comes with both
advantages and disadvantages. It is totally on the individual and the employees of the
organization along with their HR to make sure that the communication through social media
is always for the positive effects to the organization and in turn everyone along with the
organization can prosper and benefit out of it (Parveen, Jaafar & Ainin, 2015). The social
media effects and impacts many organizations and work places on a daily basis
tremendously. Here are some of the advantages and the disadvantages of using social media
at a workplace.
Advantages

3BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
 Social media help employees at the workplace to take a break from the pressure of
workload (Leonardi, 2014).
 It also helps the staff to enable themselves in making, creating and supporting
professional connections.
 It also helps the employees to ask questions and get work related problems solved
among themselves easily.
 It builds and strengthens the relationship between the co-workers.
 The social media also helps in improving and enhancing the discovery of information
and its fast delivery (Leonardi, 2014).
 Using social media at workplace also helps in the employee in recognition and
retention.
 Social media usage in the organization helps in boosting productivity in any
organization (Rutsaert et al., 2014).
Disadvantages
 There is a tremendously increased risk of losing private information of the
organization as the network of the organization is exposed.
 The productivity of the employees can also be damaged as the social media can have
a negative impact on them for over usage (Whitelock et al., 2013).
 The relationship between the employees in the organization can also be harmed as
over usage of social media allows the employees to get into the personal space of each
other all the time, which in turn can create a tussle amongst themselves.

4BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
Leaders’ contemplation of social media being the best tool for communication at the
workplace
The use of social media in the workplace has both positive and negative impacts on
the communication of the organization as well as the communication skill of the employees
working in the organization. This in turn affects the relationship among the employees and
decreases the interpersonal interaction and communication amongst themselves. The
excessive use of social media at the workplace is impoverishing the language, which is used
in corporate sectors formally for communication (Felix, Rauschnabel & Hinsch, 2017). The
leaders in the corporate sector are contemplating as having social media their best tool of
communication to an extent where they forget the value of having interpersonal relationships,
also not valuing the importance of language, which is used formally to communicate for the
benefit of the organization. Hence, it is always better to use social media very wisely and
tactfully by the employees to avoid situations like this. Top leaders of the corporate use social
media as a tool and shield at the same time. They use it as a tool to progress or rather speed
up the growth of an organization and is thoroughly used by them as a catalyst to improve the
production and activities of the organization.

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Reference:
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adolescent wellbeing: A systematic narrative review. Children and Youth Services
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marketing: A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research, 70, 118-126.
Leonardi, P. M. (2014). Social media, knowledge sharing, and innovation: Toward a theory
of communication visibility. Information systems research, 25(4), 796-816.
Parveen, F., Jaafar, N. I., & Ainin, S. (2015). Social media usage and organizational
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Rutsaert, P., Pieniak, Z., Regan, Á., McConnon, Á., Kuttschreuter, M., Lores, M., ... &
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communication? A strategic orientation approach. Food policy, 46, 84-93.
Schivinski, B., & Dabrowski, D. (2016). The effect of social media communication on
consumer perceptions of brands. Journal of Marketing Communications, 22(2), 189-
214.
Stieglitz, S., & Dang-Xuan, L. (2013). Social media and political communication: a social
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Whitelock, J., Cadogan, J. W., Okazaki, S., & Taylor, C. R. (2013). Social media and
international advertising: theoretical challenges and future directions. International
marketing review.