PaAN ESSAY ON WHAT EFFECT DOES SOCIAL MEDIA HAVE ON YOUR CURRENT/ PREVIOUS/ FUTURE BUSINESS EMPLOYER/ SECTOR?
Introduction
In recent times, an aspect of IT that has caught the interest of many organisations around the world is social media. These Organisations are realizing that social media is an area of key focus (Holm, 2006; Khan et al, 2012; Mangold and Faulds, 2009; Weinberg and Pehlivan, 2011) and are committing resources into social media to promote collaboration and enhance communication amongst employees, partners and customers (Bughin et al., 2011; Chui et al., 2012). Deepa (2014) State that social media provides efficiency and speed to achieve organisational goals. The core of every viable business or organisation is to explore opportunities that increases its value and enhance performance. This positions it strategically which saves advertising cost and also contributes to increase revenue (Nord et al, 2014). For any organisation, social media components when synergised together form the basis for communication with consumers or users. This is expressed as information sharing (Kilgour et al, 2015) and its effect contributes to organizational growth (Bharati et al, 2015).
This essay is analysing the effects of social media in NASRDA and show evidence of its use.
Social Media
The term social media is coined from two words ‘social’ and ‘media’ meaning web-based and mobile infrastructure which facilitates a two-way communication interactive platform that individuals co-create and modify (adjust) content (Kietzman et al. (2011). According to O’Reilly (2007), social media can be described as web 2.0 which enables users to create and share content. However, Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) are of the opinion that social media “is a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideology and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content”. The explanation to this simply put is web 2.0 fosters new channels of communication, sharing of information and collaborating in an internet age. Essentially, social media consist of various tools which are blogs, wikis, videos, podcasts, internet forums, social networks, microblogs, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, social tagging (Alberghini et al., 2014; Treem and Leonardi, 2013). These tools are used for collaborative knowledge in different communities such as in an organisational environment (Majchrzak et al., 2009; Fuchs and Schreier, 2001).
Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF)
PTDF is a Nigerian based organization which was created out of the defunct Gulf oil company training fund in 1973. The organisation is fully owned by the Nigerian Government and has a single office which is situated in Abuja, Nigeria. PTDF main objective is in training and education of Nigerians in the petroleum industry. Interestingly, PTDF carries out its operational mandate under three major areas which are human capital development, institutional capacity building, and in research and development for technology enhancement. PTDF is one of the most successful and viable organisations in Nigeria with a mix of 460 member of staff drawn from across the six geopolitical zones of the country. PTDF has evolved over the years to become a major organisation of government influencing policies in the oil and gas industry through its commitment in ensuring the highest level of manpower training quality ad standard in Nigeria and globally (PTDF, 2016).
PTDF is providing suitable and qualified manpower in the oil and gas industry through its network with institutional bodies of higher learning offer academic opportunities that enhance academic growth and achievements. The purpose is to assist citizen in Nigeria with professional skills and knowledge to meet the diverse needs of the Petroleum industry. Also, to develop the individual capacity of its employees within the PTDF organisation (PTDF, 2016). Evidently, PTDF has a social media structure within the organization that defines the manner in which employees use this medium to communicate with its partners to boost the value of its organization, improve performance and create a reputable brand (Culnan et al, 2010; Kietzmann et al, 2011; Sinderen and Almeida, 2011). This however, suggest that employees of PTDF use this tools to send and receive information internally and externally that in the long run provide valuable information which is used to make changes or adjustments to the organizational needs. An example of this is the use of structured emailing systems that is key to the communication structure of the organization and its partnering institutions (PTDF, 2016). This improves the speed in communication and also the quality of what is being transmitted. (empowering employees with skills to making decisive decisions)
Also, PTDF introduced an interactive website where it publishes on-going projects, events, scholarships, conferences and general information about the fund. This website is hosted on the internet which serves as a tool that “facilitates relationship building between the organization and the public in order to improve responsiveness to public needs”(Reitz, 2012). Thus, PTDF is able to adapt and tailor its information based on what feedback they get from the process (Reitz, 2012). Seemingly, the public is excited that the organization is adapting to their needs thereby creating an opportunity to learn public opinions.
According to Giurgiu and Barsan (2008) social networking has transformed the manner in which communication goes on in groups thereby reducing the division between the content consumers and the content providers where the consumer also is a provider of information. Similarly, with PTDF two accounts on twitter and Facebook they have been able to communicate with their stakeholder, getting feedbacks, opinion, and generally promoting the brand image of the organization (PTDF, 2016). They have been able to leverage the synchronous participation of this environment using stakeholders’ comments and unfiltered data for their benefit (Singh and Cullinane, 2010). This is evident in the implementation of a sentiment analysis structure for collection of stakeholder views, likes, twits, and messages. This is then analyzed to ascertain what the users comments depicts while improving on the response rate to questions, query by stakeholder and strategically align its strategy to sooth the stakeholders needs. In doing this they are repositioning the image of the organization to portray a position light.
In addition, up-to-date information about the organization can be utilized by users through social media allowing users gain knowledge on existing promotions, products and services (Hyllegard et al, 2011) also enabling users learn about an organization (Looy, 2016). This is a strategic source of knowledge sharing as it presents opportunities for educating stakeholders on existing programs of the organization. In asserting this, PTDF created pages on facebook and twitter where information about the organization, projects it is embarking on, scholarships for students, test locations, test venues, scholarship test results and list of successful applicants are published. Creating a means of educating the users and building a stronger social media relationship (PTDF, 2016).
Organizations interact with highly dedicated users or stakeholders through social media as this has certain capabilities (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010), which builds relationships with individuals (Calder et al., 2009; Malthouse et al., 2013). Organizations interact with certain users through social media which may be seen as their target audience. Imperatively this is a key strategy organizations use to reach a particular audience to boost the organizations’ reach and establish a relationship with users. Apparently, PTDF uses social media to reach a younger class of people because its programs are tailored for this set of users which they learn from in the long run.
However, there are a number of underlying factors that could change the way in which social media interact with its users. Some of those dynamics can be privacy of information, security, increase regulation, undeletable content and information distortion. This may mean content creator playing a lesser role in the use of social media (wagner et al, 2014).
Conclusion
It is of necessity that social media is a key instrument to an organisations growth and performance as it has a positive effect on PTDF by allowing it explore various tools which facilitates co-creation of ideas, knowledge sharing, speed of transmission, communication and collaboration. According to Nord et al, (2014) as organisations around the globe use social media it enhances the organisational growth, supports the use of devices with social platforms and transforms the organisation with increased benefits. This however ensures smooth decision making processes which puts the organisation ahead. PTDF utilizes social media in decision making and to align its strategy with goals. This is achieved in communication where structured emailing, social network site pages, blogs, RSS feeds are used to share, analyse and restructure information.
Moreover, the existence of sharing and collaboration of knowledge can be seen in its network with other institutions of learning. This organisation is seen as a frontline organisation in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria as a result of its involvement with social media. Its relationship with its stakeholders (students and institutions) and the constant synchronous co-creation of information enables these stakeholders to positively project the image of the organisation. Also, using RSS feed tools it gets feedbacks and is able to respond on time to applicants and stakeholders needs.
Social media can be considered to have an enormous impact on PTDF. This is seen in different forms where the organisation learn from user and stakeholders’ feedback and are able to make decisions, proffer innovation and encourage creativity. This is what makes PTDF stand out as a vital organisation in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria.ste your essay in here…