social networking for business essay

social networking for business essay

The Role of Social Networking in Enhancing Business Success

1. Introduction to Social Networking and Business

1) Introduction – 500 characters The Booz Allen survey shows that while three-quarters of 15-24 year olds use at least one SNS, only a quarter of 35-44 year olds and just 9% of 45-49 year olds are SNSers. Digital immigrants (older users) may have tentatively dipped their toes in the water, warming to e-mail and instant messaging in the internet’s early years, but SNS applications like MySpace, Google+, and Twitter are intimidatingly cold and confusing. We’re seeing explosive growth in social networking, but mostly our children are the intended beneficiaries. Businesses have really been slow to pick up on this. Businesses are missing a huge opportunity: reducing operating costs, learning more about customers and suppliers, getting access to knowledge, and understanding emerging trends a lot faster. Why are businesses not using SNS and other smart internet applications?

2. Benefits of Social Networking for Businesses

The use of social media in sales, marketing, and after-sales service by businesses is now more and more aimed at improving the online customer experience, with the ultimate goal of positively impacting the company’s bottom line. This generates engagement and commitment on both sides, from both the users and the business sectors that manage the brand. The growth in time spent on social media by both customers and businesses is increasingly attracting investment, with business activities dictating content strategies. Companies offering a superior customer user experience often have better returns, so understanding what works in terms of consumer engagement is essential. The objective of analysis of customer perceptions, and company values, both for the brand and for the product, and the new and emerging market trends appropriately connected with company objectives allows to understand the most suitable channel to convey the corporate message, allowing it to join the digital era.

The evolution of the term “business through community interaction” helped by social media tools is now an established practice. This can mean the development of strategies to get the company talked about, foster a positive interest, and generate business and revenue for the company. According to a study carried out by Karlstad University (Sweden), social networking creates value mainly associated with direct interests, such as leadership, business processes, learning orientation, and information systems. As for the indirect ones, those referred to relational management are considered the most important, comprising the source of resources capable of directly influencing the key performance indicators of the company. Given the considerable potential for improving the performance of industrial organizations, an important research area is the identification of a mechanism that allows engineers to transform the interests of the various stakeholders influenced through social networking tools into training areas.

In business, the main advantages revolve around three main points. The most important of these is to be on everyone’s mind, develop contacts, and promote one’s company and its products or services. The benefits are both direct and indirect. The direct advantages are linked to lead generation and conversion, while the indirect gains include corporate promotion and establishing oneself as a “leader in the sector.” In addition to these aspects, two other key points are the possibility to share technical and informative content between users and the possibility to maintain an ongoing dialogue with users who have shown an interest in the company’s initiatives.

A variety of innovative tools and services are designed specifically to assist networking and collaboration in business. However, there remains a distinction between professional and social networking. The primary goal of professional networking is to achieve business goals, such as long-lasting relationships, a strong image, and skilled, high-performing employees. On the other hand, a social network prioritizes building a large circle of acquaintances. Social networking is important for people of all ages, both professionally and privately, as it can provide numerous benefits.

3. Challenges and Risks of Using Social Networking for Business

As information science evolves, it became amply clear that not even the best of encryption or securing methods could make data on popular networks secure. Information generated on such networks is available to four classes of people: the originators, the network owner or manager, those who find their way to the network sites, and most importantly, hackers who are alert for any breach to attempt to install their bombs at their own convenient time, and at any time when they have access to their choice bits, without leaving any electronic offensive trace, and without any need to buy blank tapes or to dig gullies in their physical host or offspring.

Information on social networks, by the architecture of their design, cannot be fully secured. This is possible due to the simple logic: In a garden, reading silently from the open leaves of one dictionary, or one educational textbook, or listening to a major educational conversation could be an educative venture. In the same garden, reading from all the open leaves of all the dictionaries, all the textbooks, and listening to all the educational conversations would not be as educative as the first case.

In the first place, business is run in an exchange environment where the data generated are needed for the decision-making process and therefore have to be secured. The more ARPANET evolved, the additional tier called security had to be added. Security has developed so much that it has become the main preoccupation of the ARPANET stakeholders. Even today, history has made the e-threats hysteria a world phenomenon. Almost every bit of organized life is now tied to the global electronic platform and security threats have made us develop a security frenzy.

In as much as using social networking is associated with a lot of privileges that could enhance business success in this millennium, it is not free of challenges and risks. As said earlier, it extends the business environment to anywhere at any time to anyone who has access to the Internet. This is not without challenges and life-threatening risks.

4. Strategies for Effective Social Networking in Business

The various tips and strategies indicated below will help in identifying good bounce points for business growth and the ability to understand and tap fully into the potential of the World Wide Web as a platform. They will further help individuals to share experiences and yet still be innovative through common ideas exchange. These strategies will help in the brightening of business environments. It is again acknowledged that many of these strategies are still at their experimental phase of business applicability. The Hong Kong business shared start-up network usage case studies and experimental strategy learnings with others to assist in further research, application, and idea generation.

Effective use of social networking also comes with certain key rules. This section helps to identify these strategies. It further outlines four essential strategies without which social networking will not work. The information provided will support in the planning and implementation of an effective social networking strategy in the business. Furthermore, it will help in the successful management and increase in business through networking.

5. Case Studies of Successful Business Utilization of Social Networking

Multiple Internet companies assist IT departments in acquiring such information. Spider Rabbit is one company that analyzes the ability of a prospective applicant by checking his or her blog, website, or other online social connections to ensure that the candidate is a good fit for the employer’s needs. Dice Keywords is another company that searches resumes and social sites to help locate a candidate for jobs that are unfilled. Both large and small companies and others from non-profit and government sectors are entering this arena with the assistance of societal attitudes and rules. These attitudes assert that creating relationships between potential business connections and providing a transparent view of the company with others via the Web is essential. There are more than 150 million blogs written by individuals and business contributors currently on the Internet that are mostly about professional services.

In the U.S., Diebold, EMC, Plexus, and Intel have been successful in leveraging social media for business process and recruiting project needs. In the U.K., both Bulmers Cider and Uvinium are utilizing social networking to help enhance their competitiveness in the market. This paper examines how four businesses have succeeded in using social networking to fulfill their business process needs. In business, “social networking” is the ability to check the background of a prospective candidate for hire or analyze the traits of an individual in order to plan for optimal personnel placement on a team. Organizations, public and private, have immediate access to social media within their IT communication structure. For employers who are candidates, social networking provides another look at the ethics, values, and capabilities of a prospective employee or contributor to the business.