The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media

Challenges

“If your prospects like your product, they'll tell 10 people. If they don't, they'll tell 1,000.” 

                     ― Timi Nadela, Get To The Top

Social media can be the most wonderful promotional tool for business but as the quote above suggests it can harm the reputation of a business too. Sometimes negative comments may not be based on truth but you can depend on it that the stigma of negative feedback will blot the best business.
With social media exposure comes the possibility of theft of ideas, product design, identity and hacked accounts.

Inside the organisation social media has it's pitfalls too. While it has the capability for collaborative innovative project management it can also be distracting, taking employees attention away from the real work of the business.

Cultural considerations need to be addressed in an organisation. Different age groups in an organisation react differently to social media and technology. Younger people may get more leverage from social media within the organisation. It is challenging for organisations to bring all employees on the same page which, if not addressed, makes for a silo situation with separate groups within the organisations. All employees need to move beyond email and work within social media technologies to embrace change. Social media can link employees across geographical distances in collaborative endeavour. The challenge lies in making sure all employees value the improvements social media can make.

Other challenges with social media in business can be the danger of leaked sensitive information whether by accident or not. It is easy to place information on the web but not so easy to retrieve it once out in the public arena! It is therefore vital that employees have professional development around the dangers of posting inappropriate material on social media platforms.

The solution to overcoming the challenges to to create a strategy plan which covers all contingencies. Part of the implementation plan should include a strategy to develop a culture of trust, integrity and honesty around social media within the business.

To see what a comprehensive strategy plan for social media integration looks like look at the following

info-graphic below shows the steps needed. Careful planning can alleviate many of the challenging situations that may arise with social media in business.

(See this image and further information here: b2bento

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Opportunities

Opportunities of using social media are that of gaining exposure. It can give a business the opportunity to entice people into using their products or services. The viral nature of social media platforms means that if ten people provide positive feedback on the business and then share to their friends over a social media platform, some of these friends may in turn share the post and before you know it the positive feedback has reached a huge number of people. This capacity to go viral and reach more and more people is dependent on getting the first people to share the positives in the first place.

This possibility can be dependent on creating a hook to entice people to share. In Facebook for instance, users are encouraged to share through suggested sponsors. Social media entities like Facebook gather info about users and target them specifically with businesses they may be interested in through suggested sponsors. In the image below this is shown - users are encouraged to visit the sponsors web site and answer questions then share the post in order to get a reward voucher. They are also encouraged to 'Like' the page which pushes the page out to all of their friends. This shows the power of social media to reach many people and in many cases this form of advertising has superseded more traditional advertising such as newspaper ads.

There are many ways a business may choose to use social media to reach potential customers and interface with staff, these can be Facebook, Instagram, Google Hangouts to mention just a few. Information posted on social media tools are effective if they are;

• Providing current knowledge
• Credibility, building trust and creating a good reputation
• Gaining trust, through the eyes of their readers
• Internal information, to let others within the organisation know what's happening

Social media affords an effective way to promote recruitment in business. Linked In is one of the most popular social media tools for relevant recruitment. This works both ways as the organisation build relationships by posting events and ideas/latest news from the company and talented people looking for a career may be influenced by this.

Within the organisation opportunities are available for employees to collaborate on projects whether they are in the same geographical area or not. Collaborative innovation is one of the key opportunities afforded by social media tools.

What do you see as the major challenge with the use of social media for business? How could this be alleviated?
What do you see as the most ideal opportunity with social media for business? How could this be harnessed to best advantage? 
What do you see in the future for social media in the business arena? 
It will be great to read your ideas here, please leave a comment