Daphne Sanchez

Yongwen Xu
14 November 2015
BUSA 345
Enhancing Organizational Communication and Collaboration Using Social Media
Technology has shaped the world drastically and rapidly. For businesses to grow
successfully they must continue to be tech savvy. Now with the Internet, we are able to
use social media, email, instant text message, and more to communicate and collaborate
with other businesses. Communication and collaboration is very vital because it is a dayto-day tool everyone uses.
In chapter 5, Enhancing Organizational Communication and Collaboration Using
Social Media, authors Joseph Valacich and Christoph Schneider states that most
organizational business processes require communication and collaboration between
employees of different departments, as well as with outside business partners like
suppliers, customers, and other external stakeholders (Schneider 172). Social media has
evolved society and our world. It is one of the things people all over the world have in
common and it has made it possible an easy to communicate and collaborate with people
from all over the world. What caught my attention was the communication between
businesses. I wanted to learn more about how they utilize social media to enhance their
way of communicating.
Organizations are constantly looking for the right tools for their different needs.
According to Schneider and Valacich, a prime application of Enterprise 2.0 is
facilitating and enhancing the communication within an organization as well as between
an organization and its stakeholders (Schneider 181). Social media has opened many
doors of opportunities for organizations to introduce themselves to potential customers.
At the same time it has also allowed consumers to share their opinions and in turn better
an organization. Blogging, microblogging tools, instant messaging, and virtual worlds are
a few social media tools that companies use to enhance their communication.
Blogging was once just a chance for people to express themselves utilizing a
simple Webpage. Blogging could be about anything from your life, adventures, food, or
obstacles that you have encountered and overcame. In a way you could say it is an online

diary open for the public. Blogging is also used to keep the public updated with certain
news in a more fast and efficient way. However, because anyone can be a blogger the
information shared may not be credible or true. You also cant forget the fact that the
blogger can be biased and voice only what they believe is true. Despite that blogging has
shaped a way to communicate and share information with the world. With the success of
blogging, newspaper companies like The New York Times or Washington Times have
found themselves having to layoff their workers due to consumers going to the Internet
for news and updates. Today blogging is being utilized by small, medium-sized, and
large organizations for connecting with their employees or customers (Schneider 182).
Microblogging tools, also known as social presence tools, are similar to blogging.
Like blogging, it allows individuals to share their thoughts but in a more lengthy post. It
is created to share short status updates. However, instead of it being shared to the
public, the microblogger is selective to who is allowed to see their posts. A good example
is Twitter and Facebook. Everyone from a student, celebrity, or businesses to share with
the world what they want to express is utilizing twitter and Facebook. These tools make it
possible for businesses to show their consumers that they are listening and that they care
about them by keeping them updated with what is new and by responding back to their
comments.
For real-time written conversations instant messaging can be used. Instant
messaging can involve multiple participants and creates instant feedback. For example,
Facebook messaging has made it possible for instant messaging. Since the introduction to
smartphones, instant messaging has made communication easier and efficient. A
smartphone user is able to go on his or her Facebook or Facebook messaging app to reach
out to someone. Other examples are Instagram or Snapchat.
Finally, virtual worlds are a step further into real-time communication by utilizing
avatars. This form of communication, according to Schneider and Valacich, is a channel
for rich, interactive communication, as well as for education-related activities, employee
training, or medical uses (Schneider 183). For a while it was a tool for business to
utilize, but now it is found more to be used for entertainment purposes. An example is
World of Warcraft. Today you can see that Facebook is headed towards using this tool.

According to Forbes magazine, on an article called 5 Ways Social Media Will

Change The Way You Work in 2013 ever since the launch of Facebook 73 percent of
Fortune 500 companies were active on Twitter, while more than 80 percent of executives
believed in social media engagement led to increased sales and improved the productivity
in the office (Forbes 2). The five ways that social media will impact the way we work
are how social media goes company-wide, the utilization of emails declines as better
communication tools arise, social media command centers become mainstream, social
media compliance becomes a priority, and international and niche social networks present
new challenges.
Once upon a time, social media had its limits in marketing as well as community
building for companies until a report from Mckinsey showed that most of the estimated
$1.3 trillion untouched value from social media tools lies in the progress in
communications and collaboration within an across enterprises, say Forbes (Forbes 3).
Social media has been seen as a productivity tool utilized in offices the same way that
email did in the late 1990s. Human resource departments are also using social media to
reach out to jobseekers as a part of the application process. Sales teams use it to find
potential consumers, operations and distribution teams forecast supply chains, and
research development teams think about product ideas. What once was looked down, as a
useless tool has now become a very vital tool for many organizations.
Emailing is still utilized today from one-on-one to multiple, formal
correspondence; however, other ways of communicating efficiently has risen. For
instance, instant messaging is now used for real-time communication and centralized
information sharing, says Forbes (Forbes 5). More communication tools focused more
for businesses similar to Facebook are being used allowing employees to create virtual
work teams to share and exchange ideas on message boards. The best part, explains
Forbes, is the ability unlock the dark matter normally trapped in email inboxes,
making relevant content accessible and searchable for the entire company (Forbes 6).
With the rise of utilizing social media, companies have to have command centers
to keep track of information on their clients behavior, real-time monitoring, and analysis.
The command centers are filled with multiple workers where they screen track everything

from tweets and likes to customer sentiment. Expect to see this technology this tool
accessible to a broad range of companies and organizations.
Since social media has progressed and is now being used by many companies, the
SEC rules that govern the firms communications with the public and stakeholders on
traditional channels, from magazine ads to print brochures, extend to social media. This
means that every status or tweet posted can be a potential lawsuit. In other words
companies must be very mindful of what they are advertising and sharing to the world.
Since technology has kept up with rapid trends, businesses go to business-grade social
media management systems that have a featured built in archive. It also features a way
for employees to receive online training by using online training programs as well as
webinars created to keep employees updated on industry-specific compliance issues.
Lastly, now that more and more businesses are becoming social media savvy, new
networks have shown up. Forbes states that Instagram has had its share of social media
traffic progress by 17,319 percent, while Pinterest grew by 5,124 percent. Social media
has grown to be a part of everyones lives. It is found to be utilized on our smartphones,
desktops, laptops, MacBooks, ipads, or tablets and for business to prosper the must
understand the vitality of social media (Forbes 11).
As Marketing being my major, I am fortunate to grow up during a time where
social media has been found to be one of the most vital tools in enhancing
communication and collaboration. Not only is social media part of my daily routine now
it will be part of what I utilize in my work life. I am excited to know how social media
will continue to expand our way of communicating and grow.

Work Cited
Savitz, Eric. "5 Ways Social Media Will Change The Way You Work in 2013." Forbes
11 Dec. 2012: 1-11. Print.
Schneider, Christoph; Valacich, Joseph. Enhancing Organizational Communication and
Collaboration Using Social Media. Information Systems Today: Managing In The
Digital World. Seventh ed. Pearson, 2016. 172.Print.