• describe the business requirements for information and communication technology and the risks and benefits these tools and techniques can bring to an organisation+
ICT General!!!
Social media
definitions
Various terms have been used to describe these platforms, such as ‘social networking’ or ‘social software’. The underlying technology has also been described as ‘Web 2.0’.
This term recognises the fundamental distinction between social media and traditional web sites (now referred to as ‘Web 1.0’):
• websites are one-way broadcast platforms; whereas
• social media is a two-way conversation.
features
Organisations should decide how they will use social media for their business.
A feature of most social media services is that the associated content is stored and processed on servers within the internet, rather than on individual computers. This is referred to as taking place in the ‘cloud’. This process is referred to as ‘cloud computing’ (discussed in Module 5 and later in this module).
Social media has also provided people with far more control of internet content. The appearance of Wikipedia in 2001 was one of the major milestones in social media—opening up the creation and editing of a major reference work to all users of the internet.
risks and challenges
Employees using social media in their work need to remember that they are representing their employer and not presenting their individual identity
Managers need to reduce the level of control traditionally exerted over communication channels; therefore need for openness
Perceived risk of misuse of social media at work for personal use. Concerns about wasting time (possibly not justified).
Perceived risk of loss of intellectual property
Candidates should also be aware that there are potential problems from employees using social media to project their identity rather than to represent their employer.
Telstra’s 3Rs of Social Media (2009) are ‘responsibility, respect and representation’. In its policy for use of social media, Telstra encouraged the use of social media, but asked for responsible and respectful behaviour, and in communications relating to Telstra users should be aware that they are representing Telstra.
Why businesses use social media
Social media also provides additional marketing and communication channels. In the Sensis report from 2015, 17 per cent of small businesses, 32 per cent of medium businesses and 46 per cent of large businesses in Australia reported using paid advertising on social media (Sensis 2015, p. 6).
An important difference between social media and other marketing and communication media is its two-way nature. Traditional business media are usually broadcast or ‘push’ technologies; social media enables a much richer, two-way engagement with the target audience. Through using social media, organisations can become better at engaging people and building and retaining the trust and confidence of their staff, stakeholders and customers. Building a deeper relationship with stakeholders delivers many benefits for business. It allows customers to feel a stronger affinity with the business and can strengthen their support of the business.
Social media platforms provide more immediate and more manageable communication and collaboration. This technology (in the form of Enterprise 2.0) is particularly useful inside organisations in areas such as project management, where collaboration and rapid communication are vitally important.
They allow staff to develop personal profiles, enhancing community development and the ability of people in the organisation to find others with specific areas of expertise. (This is known as ‘expertise location’,
potential benefits
More effective marketing: two-way communications with customers
Product development: crowdsourcing
Better access to knowledge: opportunities for knowledge sharing
Employee engagement
Lower cost of doing business
Intangible benefits, such as improvements in employee engagement and knowledge, are impossible to quantify reliably
Social media technologies
figure 6.2!!!
How businesses use social media
Applications
applications!!!
A number of companies have created a customer service presence on social media platforms such as Twitter. Many of these have been highly successful at increasing customer satisfaction. Similarly, some companies offer product tutorials on YouTube or other video-sharing sites, which both increases customer satisfaction and decreases customer calls requesting information.
feedback
Social media can be used to allow customers to provide feedback to companies, including offering suggestions for product improvement and development. This is referred to as ‘crowdsourcing’. This process can also be used to engage staff within an organisation to more effectively submit ideas for product innovation or organisational improvement. The term ‘crowdsourcing’ is based on the idea of ‘the wisdom of crowds’. Surowiecki (2004, p. xiii) found that ‘under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them’. This is a similar principle to that found in many social media— most famously in Wikipedia.
forming relationships
People within organisations form relationships with each other in order to perform their work. These connections between people are critical to how organisations operate. Social media
(in the form of Enterprise 2.0) can facilitate easier and more effective interactions between people.
addressing complex situations
Traditional ‘top-down’ approaches to problem-solving and decision-making are also becoming less effective in dealing with the complexity increasingly found in organisations today,
as managers may not be in a position to understand all aspects of the work undertaken by their parts of the organisation. Approaches that are more collaborative are often required to access expertise from a broader base across the organisation.
By allowing more effective internal communication, social media offers the new approaches that are needed to address today’s complex situations.
Comparing Australian social media use to the rest of the world
consumers/australian society
Australians tend to be early adopters of any new technology. There is a high take-up of mobile devices in Australia, and these devices are increasingly being used to access social media. In total, 68 per cent of all Australia’s internet users also use social media services (Sensis 2015).
australian business lagging behind
Based on the Sensis figures previously cited, on average, only 33 per cent of Australian businesses reported using social media in 2015
An analysis of the 2015 global Social Media Examiner report shows that Australian business is seriously lagging behind international trends in social media marketing, as a vast majority (96%) of international respondents reported social media marketing activities, compared with Australia’s reported 33 per cent (Young 2015b).
While Australian Facebook penetration is similar to the international figure, Twitter and LinkedIn penetration figures are significantly lower
there are significant opportunities for Australian businesses to catch up with the rest of the world and lift their social media profile. This is particularly important, as the Australian public are well up with world trends and ready to engage with business.
Other consideration
social media tools work in a different way to conventional communications tools. The focus should be on people and their needs, rather than on the technology. The use of social media can result in a more engaged audience, more efficient communication and a more effective organisation.
Social media tools can be used to enhance existing personal networks, create new networks or connect geographically dispersed groups of people who are unable to meet face to face.
These tools may be introduced to augment existing communications channels and media, or they may be quite separate, and may replace other channels if they are adopted by the audience.
culture promotion
Rather than just adapting the tools to match an organisational culture, the tools can also be used to promote change in an organisation’s culture.
due to the low cost of implementing them, these tools can be deployed and adopted very rapidly. This allows information to be distributed more quickly and enables changes in strategy, priorities or direction to be enacted more easily.
As more people use social media for personal use (such as Facebook), increasing demands are being made for similar systems to be made available inside organisations—either existing public social media platforms or dedicated internal or defined community platforms (such as Yammer).
As organisations adopt these, they can become more open internally and the organisational boundary can also start to blur, depending on the platforms used.
Another fear that has been expressed regarding social media access is the risk of leaks or loss of intellectual property (IP). However, it is not inherently more likely that this will take place over social media than via telephone, paper or other means. ‘Blocking access does nothing to stop this bad employee behaviour’ (Holtz 2010).
The nature of social media platforms as cloud-based, user-controlled systems can be challenging to traditional IT management, which is more familiar with centrally controlled, hierarchical systems. A culture change may be necessary within an organisation to enable the opportunities of these systems to be fully realised.
There may also be a fear that social media traffic may increase data bandwidth demands on company networks. In response to this, companies may incur costs in increasing network capacity. However, where there are benefits to be gained, these costs should be considered from a return on investment point of view. Organisations have always been responsible for providing the appropriate infrastructure for business to be carried out effectively.
To return to the issue of reputation, social media can also be seen as a risk mitigation tool. Before major issues that may affect reputation make it to the traditional media, they will usually have been on social media for some time. In a recent interview, Peter Williams, CEO of Deloitte Digital, stated ‘If you are monitoring what is being said about you, you have at least got a bit of an early warning system’ (Short 2011).
Social media: policies and legislation
• Companies may develop a policy for the use of social media by employees.
• Telstra’s ‘3Rs of Social Media Engagement’ (2009): responsibility, respect and representation.
• Rulings in Australia that companies are responsible for postings by third parties on social media sites under their control.
• Therefore legal requirement to remove data that may breach advertising or competition laws/regulations.
Social media platforms are continuously changing and improving
It is important for organisations to monitor these changes and any regulatory and legal developments that may affect their use. Care should also be taken that any policies or procedures developed are continually kept up to date—both to ensure compliance and that the maximum benefits and latest features of social media are being used to the best advantage.
While in many cases information made available via social media tools is not viewed in the same light as news items written by professional journalists, some jurisdictions are beginning to apply similar laws to social media sites.
In October 2009, the Federal Trade Commission in the United States published new regulations that ‘mandate disclosure of relationships between bloggers and companies that pay them or supply them with products’ (McCullagh 2009). Opinions are divided on the appropriateness of this law and how it is applied in practice.
Measuring the benefits
measuring benefits!!!!
In research on the use of social media within 328 organisations, Crampton (2010) showed that ‘highly effective communicators are making greater use of social media than their less-effective peers’ in internal communications. These communicators are using social media for ‘collaboration team building, adapting to change, and promoting health’ (Crampton 2010).
Kaw (2009) lists some tangible measures of activity on blog sites: REACS
• Reach—number of visitors.
• Stickiness—number of regular subscribers.
• Engagement—number of visitors engaging in discussion through comments.
• Authority—number of links to the site from other places, including mentions on other social media platforms such as Twitter.
• Conversions—amount of traffic that generates connections to company product sites, or sales leads.
With a more engaged workforce, the leaders of an organisation gain much quicker and more detailed access to the knowledge and ideas of their staff. This engagement can also lead to improved staff retention.
A large number of social media tools are inexpensive (or often free) to use or obtain.
This not only saves on capital costs but also on support costs, as there are no installation costs or ongoing maintenance and upgrade requirements for cloud-based applications.
Due to their low cost, social media tools can offer a substantial return on investment.
some downsides of these benefits
There may be some IT-related costs that need to be considered in obtaining these benefits.
This will depend on the extent to which these systems operate from the cloud or on organisational networks. These may include integration of the technology into existing systems or interfacing between different systems, data storage requirements, training and support.
There may be some IT-related costs that need to be considered in obtaining these benefits.
This will depend on the extent to which these systems operate from the cloud or on organisational networks. These may include integration of the technology into existing systems or interfacing between different systems, data storage requirements, training and support.
Another advantage of social media tools is that even small, incremental changes in communication programs or other activities (that can be made for little or no cost) can still yield important benefits, thereby avoiding the long time frames and large overheads of embarking on major projects.