MGT502: Business Communication - Digital Resource Analysis Assessment Answers

Using Social Media in the Workplace to Communicate

Introduction

Social media is an online platform which is a development from the functionality of Web 2.0 (Hestres, 2017). It facilitates collaboration, content-sharing, interactions, and inputs within individuals in the same setup (Hestres, 2017). Examples of social media communication tools are; Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Pinterest. The social media sites are becoming an integral part of business communications. Organizations are using social media for fostering new businesses, connecting with customers and employees, promoting brands, and marketing of products (Hestres, 2017). In fact, social media is a distribution and a communication tool that can be used by organizations in diverse locations. It has emerged as effective tools in increasing flexibility at work which helps in balancing social and professional life. Studies show that employees spend quality time on the social media interacting, sharing, and working (Negru?a, and Sofic?, 2014).In this regard, this report will major in investigating digital communication strategy within an organization. The project will concentrate on social media platforms used for improving internal communication at the workplace. The identified tools in this regard are Yammer, LinkendIn, Slack, Mattermost, Zyncro, and Socialcast. The project will describe the functionality and the features of the social media tools in workplace employees’ communication. Finally, a summary of the key findings will be discussed at the end.

Social media strategies that encourage internal communication at workplace

Yammer is a chat service it is currently used by organizations (Negru?a, and Sofic?, 2014). It is a tool that enhances internal communication where the taskforce and the business leaders post work-related content on the page (Negru?a, and Sofic?, 2014). The social media application tool can also be integrated into a mobile phone platform.Hence, employees get in touch with the updates easily without requiring a desktop functionality. It is a very useful tool since it encourages communication in real time. It is also very important since it saves the business from the daily email workload (Negru?a, and Sofic?, 2014). If not managed strictly it can encourage the spread of unwanted information and details that can compromise organizational data and strategies.

LinkedIn is a social media platform that allows interactions between business owners and their employer (Knight, 2017). The platform allows the creation of an organization intranet site which enhances employees’ communication (Knight, 2017). Through such platform, it is possible for the employers to manage their employees, build employees pride and ownership of the organization. It is also an effective platform for creating organizational announcements and sharing internal information (Knight, 2017).

Slack was initiated by Stewart Butterfield it contains the collaboration services and tools through the functionality of cloud (Andrews, 2016).It is mainly used as an internal tool in an organization (Andrews, 2016). It contains features which allow direct and private messaging. It allows contains chats rooms which encourage continuous messaging (Andrews, 2016). One of the amazing features of slack that improves its accuracy in internal communication is searchable. Employees can search people, conversations, and files. Slacks functionality is supportive for community-based integrations and it is also transferrable to the third party. Main integration services in Slack are Zendesk, Runscope, GitHub, Crashlytics, IBM Bluemix, Heroku, Box, Dropbox, Trello, and Google Drive(Andrews, 2016). Slack also allows the employees to enjoy interactions through the messaging features which encourage expression of emotions. Therefore, employees can communicate through texting or emails. The human resource manager creates the page and invites employees to join( Young and Hinesly, 2014). It has a functionality which enables private communication with a smaller group. In this regard, an organization can split the groups into small and the messaging application can send information to ten individuals directly. The Slack application is compatible with Windows Phone, Android, and Ios mobile platforms( Young and Hinesly, 2014).The application is also compatible with Apple Watch which improves functionality. The application has weaknesses such as proprietary could apps that allows organizational data to third-party servers.

Mattermost is another internal communication tools at the workplace that is considered an alternative to Slack( Young and Hinesly, 2014). It is better than slack because it uses open source functionality, unlike the cloud server by Slack. Mattermost enhances workplace communication in one setting( Young and Hinesly, 2014). It is advantageous because can be accessed and searched from any place. The social media application enables file sharing and messaging across mobile platforms and desktop applications. The application enhances employees productivity by allowing scalable messaging, and secure configuration in an open source (Acquisti, Alessandro and Gross, 2016).It is advantageous since an organization has a direct control of the data and files as shared in the workplace. It is mounted with strict security measures behind the organization firewall(Acquisti, Alessandro and Gross, 2016).It is an application that applies the social media functionality to enhance interaction at the workplace. Successful organizations such as Uber utilize Mattermost to enhance its interactions.

Zyncro is another social media platform that encourages internal communication at the workplace (Stolley, 2016). The platform was initiated in 2009 and it is the very important business platform that encourages file management, collaboration and communication at the workplace(Stolley, 2016). Employees can easily share contacts, tasks, manage documents and communicate regarding work, events and important updates(Stolley, 2016). The application is mounted with customization and personalization options that encourage organizations to make effective communication choices. The application allows employees to manage teams effectively while inclined to the company mission and vision. Zyncro can be integrated with Google Applications such as Drive, Calendar, and Gmail hence improving the nature of sharing and communication(Acquisti, Alessandro and Gross, 2016). It can be also integrated with YouTube, RSS, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn that encourages communicate further. The application is also very effective for the organization in search of building relationship socially with the partners, suppliers and customers.

Socialcast is a social media tool initiated in 2005 (Melton and Hicks, 2017). The tool can be optimized for the mobile and web application(Melton and Hicks, 2017). It enhances, employees’ communication in real time. It also contains analyzing features that be used to improve productivity. An organization and publish and monitor employees communication within the application(Melton and Hicks, 2017).Socialcast can also be used for viewing workplace attachments, seeing and replying to work-related updates, engaging in private messaging and sending group messages. It is also possible to stream organizational Facebook and Twitter updates into the Socialcast applications for informing the employees. It encourages faster innovation by sharing new information and feedback in real time(Melton and Hicks, 2017). The centralization feature of the application improves workplace management and communication. It reduces email workload since the employees and the organization have access to the information and updates( Argenti, 2006). It also reduces the burdens of conducting periodical meetings employees can access updated information. It encourages employees to ask questions and find answers without moving from one office to another which saves time and company resources( Argenti, 2016). It has also an important platform in encouraging accurate deliverables in regard to meeting deadlines and updating documents( Argenti,2016). Most importantly, employees have the opportunities of gaining new ideas on daily basis from the inputs of their colleagues.

The social media tools are very effective in encouraging internal communication at the workplace. Organizations that utilize their functionality performs better in comparison to organizations that are inclined to the traditional communication tool (Correia, 2013).The business managers and the human resource is capable of updating their files as required due to easy accessibility of information(Stolley, 2016).The tools make it convenient for the management to monitor and coordinate work related matters from a far distance. Otherwise, tight security needs to be encouraged while sharing company information in such tools. Some employees can be malicious or can be lured to disclose important organization details derived by self-interests. It is, therefore, important ensure security is tight (Correia, 2013).Every employee should be made liable for the information and any suspicious leaking of information should be reported.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the interest of the project was to discuss using social media at the workplace to communicate. The project has majored in the social media strategies that can be used to communicate and how they can improve workplace performance. The mentioned tools above are very effective for workplace communication. As identified the tools are very important in enabling communication, interactions, sharing of information, ideas, files, documents, and updates concerning progress and events. Without such social media tools and organization can be inclined to the traditional channels that are expensive, time-consuming and inappropriate. Generally, the discussed tools enhance communication at a workplace. There is no restriction of choice but the organization can choose based on security and other functionalities. Some tools are open source while others are managed through the cloud. The disadvantage of sharing company's sensitive information through the cloud is that the information is exposed to a third party which can be prone to man in the middle attacks. Once an unauthorized person has access to the organizational information then they can use it to their own advantage or can be leaked to compromise the image and the status of the organization.