The Impact of Social Media on Management

Social media influences how managers perform different roles in an organization. In most cases, managers use media platforms to recruit and hire employees; employers make hiring decisions based on what is on the social media (De Vries et al. 2012, p. 89). Over years, firms have been using the media to create customer relations while ignoring the impact that the same media has on a firm’s management system. For a business to be successful, managers ought to understand areas of organizational performance that are affected by the social media. Some of the management aspects that are affected by social media include decision making, marketing, and hiring. Facebook and Twitter are among the platforms that affect the management aspects.

Decision Making And Social Networking

Positive Impacts

Customers have turned to the social media to discuss the value of certain products and how they feel towards the brand (De Vries et al. 2012, p. 86). In the process, managers get to know if the consumers like or dislike a product, which is important for decision making. Companies improve or change the quality of goods and services depending on consumers’ comments on Twitter or Facebook. Social networking has taken a central role in the professional lives of decision makers; they analyze media remarks before embarking on the decision-making process (Castronovo & Huang 2011, p.117). In the contemporary world, approximately one billion people have access to the internet, over four billion have smartphones, and more than 400 million individuals use the internet to share pieces of content on certain products. Decision makers hence receive a dozen of feedbacks from all corners of the world on daily basis. Apart from linking decision makers to the consumers, social networking has enhanced vast interactions among many professionals (Kietzmann et al. 2011, p. 246). Professionals meet on the social media platforms and exchange different decision-making ideas. Companies get to acquire new data from people far away, even in other continents. the far-reaching impact of social media platforms  is becoming influential in the decision-making arena day by day as millions of professionals share their experiences with each other.

Negative Impacts

Social networking is altering procedures used by managers to arrive at firms’ decisions. Managers have become over-reliant on the media when it comes to decision making, such that they have forgotten to seek the opinion of the employees (De Vries et al. 2012, p. 114). Employees feel neglected, which leads to the reduction of their productivity, affecting the overall performance of an organization. At times, comments on Twitter and Facebook may not be entirely genuine. In such cases, managers end up making wrong decisions. Social networking encourages crowd behaviors, which are dangerous to a firm’s marketing techniques as they cause people to act in a certain way. Instances where specific group of people may not satisfied, they end up influencing other individuals in the public on why to hate a certain product or a company.

Marketing and Social Networking

Positive Impacts

Facebook and Twitter are among places where managers can share about their products and services. In most cases, customers gather in the two platforms to research on the products or services they are interested in. In situations where a company favors their needs, they contact it and purchase the products (Gensler et al. 2013, p. 245). Apart from that, social networking gives firms an opportunity to dialogue with customers as they update them on their products. Without social media marketing, a firm's products are limited to the routine customer, but when business venture in the media industry, they reach out to many more buyers nationally or even globally for big firms.

Notably, any content posted on the social media is an opportunity for a company to acquire a new client (Hutter et al 2013, p.338). Social media is a community with persons who have distinctive tastes; managers ought to reach them all and ascertain who is in support of their products. Generally, social networking gives a room for businesses to give a positive impression of a firm’s image. A post on the company’s products may have several viewers, which in turn facilitates the creation of traffics.

In the marketing sector, managers ought to learn what messages are effective among the customers (Peters et al. 2013, p. 288). The process should not be just through circulating pamphlets or adverts with cultivating messages, but also involving buyers in the process of product creation. In this way, the company will have communicated about the products even before launching them in the market.

Negative Impacts

Companies have limited control over their brands' reputation. Social media users such as in Facebook and Twitter, dictate a product’s reputation through their comments. Companies are losing the ability to market their products on their own. In instances where competitors decide to lay down negative publicity about a product, a company may suffer as it tries to correct the negative implications. According to research, a single negative tweet or comment on Facebook can make a business lose up to thirty consumers (Gensler et al. 2013, p. 248). the reason for this is that majority of the customers believe what other buyers have to say more than messages in the conventional advertisement platforms such as newspapers , television, and magazines.

Hiring and Social Networking

Positive Influence

Social media influences the hiring aspect of a management. Employers use tweets and Facebook profiles of job seekers to narrow down the window of applicants. Research depicts that currently, approximately 90 percent of employers in developed countries use social networks in the recruitment process (Wang et al. 2012, p. 205). Online marketing companies are the best example of companies that seek employers in the social media; they post adverts on Facebook and Twitter for interested parties to contact them for job opportunities (Hutter et al 2013, p.350). The platforms allow employers know more about the job seekers that are not included in the cover letters and curriculum vitae. On top of that, applicants are in a position to learn about firms of their interest.

Negative Influence

In instances where job seekers do not observe the utmost good faith rules, then a manager may end up employing wrong individuals. The social media has been known as one of the places where people say what they are not in the real life. Therefore, managers can easily be deceived by employees if they use Facebook and Twitter as their sole reference when hiring employees (Hanna et al.2013 p. 269). Besides, the process of searching applicant’s information in the social network is time wasting and cumbersome. Instances where job seekers have protected their data in the sites or have multiple accounts, recruiters are bound to get inconsistent results.

Conclusion

Conclusively, social networking will always influence firm’s management aspects depending on how it is used. A business can for example establish its presence on a host of social platforms, but none of the sites will make it succeed without proper planning and efforts. Facebook and Twitter pages that are left unattended can cause a business to lose customers, which affects marketing, hiring, and decision-making strategies. A business should, therefore, ensure it remains relevant in the social media for continued success. Additionally, effective customer relations should be paramount to avoid negative comments on the brands or the company’s image at large. Understanding consumers’ current needs and expectations is the way to creating a good image for a company. All business organizations ought to embrace the community needs to help them make decisions that are effective to both the company and the consumers.

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