Opportunities and Challenges of using Social Media in Business Organizations

Social press explores the opportunities that were not exploited in the past, which later provides good results to the business organization which uses it as a means of getting to the potential customers (Noe, R. , Hollenbeck, & Wright, P. , 2006 pg. The opportunities that social media provides to a business organization will be discussed in the paper. The rate at which social media is high and also its popularity rises as time goes up. The social media networking sites, the bookmarking sites, the social news sites, the blogging sites and the and the online forums comprise the social media platform. While on the other hand, the apps, the blog comments the tags, the videos share and other technology firms are the social media tools.

The social networking sites provide the actual space for the people to share daily activities, their opinions on a subject matter. The sites also create the room for the people to make new online friends. The presence of specific search engines provides accurate directions on the topics sought by the users. , 2014, pg. The social media company supports the business organization process and the objective which includes product marketing, customer expansion and retention of customers, marketing of their products, relations with the public, market research, sales and recruiting. Competitive Advantages of Social Media Customer Relationship Management The main and principal advantage of the social media is that it provides opportunities which strengthen the mutual relationship that exists between a company and the potential customers.

According to Tom Funk in his book “social media playbook for business: reaching your online community with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more” is primarily important due to the creation of the truce between the customers and the business organization (Cross, & Parker, A. The business organization benefits from social media since the real-time online communications with actual and potential customers; they can avail information about their brand. & Sexton, D. L. , 2001, pg. Market Research This is also a competitive advantage of using social media in business organizations. According to Stephan Rappaport book “listen first: turning social media conversations into a business advantage” that the reliable means to acquire and get the culture, the views, and the lifestyles that impacts the consumer behavior (Kaplan, A.

Hence, this is a pathway to the user and the company engagement which will, in turn, increase the sales of products of a business organization (Kaplan, A. M. , Pg. Cost Control Initiatives Social media is regarded as the relatively low-cost means of marketing a particular product to the potential millions of consumers. The high cost incurred when using the television advertisement are written off once social media takes it central place (Kaplan, A. However, for the business organizations that for long have been used to giving one-sided sell faces the burden of having to shift (Meyer, K. E & Narula, R. , pg. The organizations will have to develop ads that promote the culture of the product. Increased Customer Power Social media will provide a platform for the customers to air out the negative experiences they might have had.

E & Narula, R. , pg. Further, contacting the actual customers with the negative experiences will lead improved feedback. The advancement may still turn futile. Accidental Release of Confidential Information The company competitive advantage may be brought down to its knees if an individual with inside knowledge of the business blurts out the confidential information. , pg. 10) The following are the security concerns of the using social media. Hacked Accounts The security of accounts is sometimes compromised which will be used by the potential hackers to initiate any of the security attacks which can be sharing of confidential information, passwords being stolen and the risk of losing the accounts. Phishing and Brand Impersonation Phishing is defined as creating a similar website to the one owned by a company whose customers are the main audience targeted to be part of the phishing attack.

The sole reason is convincing the individuals that the website belongs to the real company (Tiago, 2014. C. & Fraedrich, J. The ethical concern ranges from giving information that is not correct, posting an inappropriate comment which I one way or the other undermine a company’s credibility and integrity. Risks The business organization that employed the use of social media in its operations might face the threat of time wastage. Social media is no doubt very addictive and potentially risking that the employees will spend more time in the social media (Aula, P. The evaluation of risks, reporting, and monitoring 3. Affordable risk transfer Systems Effective data management together with leverage the upcoming technologies to mitigate the social media risks 1. Analysis of social media data through mining 2.

Engines that analyze texts 3. The security of data and its storage 4. This challenge makes social media use in business a risk worth to be a concern. The security and the ethical concerns of the also pose a question on the capabilities of the business organization to integrate the social media. Moreover, the paper highlights the ways through which the business organization can be used to mitigate the risks that are associated with social media. References Aula, P. Social media, reputation risk, and ambient publicity management. and Parker, A. The hidden power of social networks: Understanding how work gets done in organizations. Harvard Business Press. Ferrell, O. C. L. Integrating entrepreneurship and strategic management actions to create substantial wealth. Academy of Management Perspectives, 15(1), pp.