Social Media for Enterprise
Usage of Social Networking sites by Fortune 500 companies has seen an explosive growth in 2010 with 83% of the companies using at least one of the social media sites. The usage of blogs has also increased by 50%, almost 34% of the companies have developed policies to govern blogging by their employees. This is an era of Social Media. Individual, or a huge business group, everyone is using social media. What are Social Network Sites? “Social network sites are de?ned as web-based services that allow individuals or organizations to construct a public or semi-public pro?le within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”
Common Usages of Social Media:
Social Networking Sites have been an awesome source for companies to connect with the common man, use their human resources efficiently, a source of low cost marketing and a nice way to follow their competitors. Marketing: As I mentioned earlier Social media is an important source of marketing for the companies. All Marketing starts with listening to your customers and social media sites provide the best platform to listen to your customers. Customers are out there, right now, carrying on conversations about their setbacks and successes. Each of those conversations provides an opportunity to serve your customer better. Customers give their reviews there, it gives a feedback to you about your product, which can be used to improve the standard of your product. If the reviews are negative, then the you will respond to their comments and promise them to deliver better service. Recent research by Forrester Research found management responses to negative reviews on hotel review site TripAdvisor positively influenced guest opinion of the property. Efficient use of Human Resource: Companies make their own social networks where employees can interact with each other. Different social networking sites provide a platform for the employees to interact with each other where they can share their views , get connected with people of similar interests and what not!!! Follow Competitors: If you and your competitor both are on social media sites, then it is easy to follow your competitors in real time, what’s new in their activities etc. It gives you an easy way to have an eye on your competitors activities.
Nightmare Stories of Social Media :
Streisand effect:
The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity. For example, In May 2012, the UK's High Court ordered 5 British ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay due to copyright infringement concerns. The media coverage led to The Pirate Bay receiving a record amount of traffic. According to the site's blog, the number of unique visitors increased by up to 12 million (HAHA
).
Domino’s Pizza:
Two employees made up a story about polluting products at Domino's pizza with mucus and such, made some short videos in which they claimed that they were producing such Domino’s cheese steaks for delivery, then posted them online. Video received 500,000+ views and it really vanished company’s image in common man. There have been many examples like these which can harm any company’s image. There is a need to have an eye on posts that employees and company’s pages post on social media. As it takes years years to build a brand image but it takes a minute to kill it.
Action :
Rules and Regulations should be defined in the organization, employee can’t post anything with self-initiative. Monitoring your brand, there are many leading companies like BUZZ CAPTURE who provide services for monitoring and analyzing social media for the company. Creating Awareness , awareness program should be started in the companies to teach employees about the importance of social media for a company
doc_722302455.doc
Usage of Social Networking sites by Fortune 500 companies has seen an explosive growth in 2010 with 83% of the companies using at least one of the social media sites. The usage of blogs has also increased by 50%, almost 34% of the companies have developed policies to govern blogging by their employees. This is an era of Social Media. Individual, or a huge business group, everyone is using social media. What are Social Network Sites? “Social network sites are de?ned as web-based services that allow individuals or organizations to construct a public or semi-public pro?le within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”
Common Usages of Social Media:
Social Networking Sites have been an awesome source for companies to connect with the common man, use their human resources efficiently, a source of low cost marketing and a nice way to follow their competitors. Marketing: As I mentioned earlier Social media is an important source of marketing for the companies. All Marketing starts with listening to your customers and social media sites provide the best platform to listen to your customers. Customers are out there, right now, carrying on conversations about their setbacks and successes. Each of those conversations provides an opportunity to serve your customer better. Customers give their reviews there, it gives a feedback to you about your product, which can be used to improve the standard of your product. If the reviews are negative, then the you will respond to their comments and promise them to deliver better service. Recent research by Forrester Research found management responses to negative reviews on hotel review site TripAdvisor positively influenced guest opinion of the property. Efficient use of Human Resource: Companies make their own social networks where employees can interact with each other. Different social networking sites provide a platform for the employees to interact with each other where they can share their views , get connected with people of similar interests and what not!!! Follow Competitors: If you and your competitor both are on social media sites, then it is easy to follow your competitors in real time, what’s new in their activities etc. It gives you an easy way to have an eye on your competitors activities.
Nightmare Stories of Social Media :
Streisand effect:
The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity. For example, In May 2012, the UK's High Court ordered 5 British ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay due to copyright infringement concerns. The media coverage led to The Pirate Bay receiving a record amount of traffic. According to the site's blog, the number of unique visitors increased by up to 12 million (HAHA

Domino’s Pizza:
Two employees made up a story about polluting products at Domino's pizza with mucus and such, made some short videos in which they claimed that they were producing such Domino’s cheese steaks for delivery, then posted them online. Video received 500,000+ views and it really vanished company’s image in common man. There have been many examples like these which can harm any company’s image. There is a need to have an eye on posts that employees and company’s pages post on social media. As it takes years years to build a brand image but it takes a minute to kill it.
Action :
Rules and Regulations should be defined in the organization, employee can’t post anything with self-initiative. Monitoring your brand, there are many leading companies like BUZZ CAPTURE who provide services for monitoring and analyzing social media for the company. Creating Awareness , awareness program should be started in the companies to teach employees about the importance of social media for a company
doc_722302455.doc