Social Media in Organisations

Because almost each and everyone in the world is using social media, most organisations today are using social media. Unlike in the olden days when social media was not so popular, organisations used to find it hard to run their organisations without the help of social media. Companies today use social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, blogging, LinkedIn e.t.c. LinkedIn is a popular networking site where alumni, business associates, recent graduates and other professionals connect online. It houses 55 million professionals seeking jobs, employees or basic business or networking opportunities.(www.inc.com/guides/using-social-networking-sites.html). Companies use these social networks to achieve certain goals such as boosting  their sales or boosting productivity, advertise business, some to communicate with their customers or amongst co-workers in a company.

There are lots of companies in the world using social networks, companies such as Adidas, they use My Space, Coca Cola uses Facebook and blogs, Ernest and young utilises facebook for hiring and many other companies.
Social Networks cuts down on unnecessary e-mail and instant messages among co-workers, says Dan Nye, CEO LinkedIn. They really help with co-workers communicating in the business, even if some one does not come to work, that person will still be able to communicate with people from his/her company. When coming to communication with customers or advertising, companies usually uses blogs, they help customers with knowing what is actuall happening in the business as they keep on updating their blogs. This means they get updated about almost everything about that particular organisation.

Though companies rely on these social networks there are disadvantages that lies within. It is said that social networking site are not safe and are affected by account hack cases or some viruses made especially for them. The question now is are social networks useful for businesses? Should the companies rely so much on them or must they have a back up plan to achieve their goals?

New Media vs Old Media

Today social media is having a huge growth in our society. Old media is starting to fade away as social media is dominating. "More and more people are turning to social networks to communicate while more and more decision makers are turning to social platform as well" (TNW THE NEXT WEB September 16,2011 by Lauren Fisher). Social media is getting all the attention from people. It is said that over 1 billion people use social network today. Social networks such as facebook, twitter, my space, linkedin etc are getting all the attention from people compared to old media. Taking facebook for example, it is said that "As of 2011, there are 500,000,000 active facebook users approx. 1 in every 13 people on earth . Half of them are logged in on  any given day" (http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/facebook-statistics-stats-facts-2011). The are many reasons behind this huge boom. One of the reasons is that news travel more faster in social networks than in newspapers or televisions. For example when something interesting and catchy to almost everyone, those news will now reach social networks before newspapers.One of the examples is the death of popular artist Whitney Houston. It first reached social media before it was even reported on the news.

When coming to the publishing of news, newspapers publish news throughout the day unlike in blogs. What you have published will not be a headline for the whole day. It will be pushed away by another catchy headline that come minutes after yours. In newspapers you can be able to keep your headlines longer and if your story reaches the front page of a news paper, it is found more interesting and many people will know about it.  
On the old media side of the house, some mediums are shrinking faster than others, with local TV news leading the decline, from 74% usage in 2006 to 62% last year. (http://mashable.com/2009/01/29/stats-old-media-decline/). According to research released by Nielsen. Americans ages 12 to 34 are spending less time in front of the TV sets even as those 35 and older are spending more. Young people watch the same shows using their mobile phones and they watch these through social networks. Youtube is one of them. It is a website were people share their vidoes. Besides that news are now discussed in these social networks and gives people an opportunity to comment. Thus, people no longer have to buy newspapers or sit in front of the TV set.

Comparing these statistics about new media and old media it shows that new media is still growing. The question now is Is old media really going to be out dated and new media taking over?

Children and the internet

If you would ask a child from this new generation to choose from a toy and surfing the internet. That child would choose the internet, that is how popular it is today. Ever wonder what is that they love the most about the internet? 

Social Networking is one of the most popular sites people get engaged in when using the internet, especially children. There are more than 200 well known social networking sites available on the internet. These include, facebook, twitter, myspace, linkedin etc. The rate of people using social networks is increasing instead of decreasing. It is said that users have doubled since 2007 meaning everyone is now getting interested in social networks and more social networks are being founded. Social networking is fun for almost everyone, especially teenagers.They are connected to these networks though they are under age. These networks includes their own terms and conditions. Facebook terms and conditions states that in order to sign up you must be over the age of 13. It is said that there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts and they are violating the site's terms and conditions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/facebook).

PC Joy Price a children and young persons officer in Sheffied says "11-12 year olds use social networking sites in the wrong way. Children add people who they have no idea who they are and set up meetings with strangers".(BBC news 29 February 2012).  Online child Exploitation Det-Snr -Sgt Lindsay Garrat warned young children were exposing themselves to risk such as sexual predators, cyber bullying and identity theft on social networking sites.


On Mxit (South African chatroom ). There had been allegations about young girls disappearing to meet up with older men they have met in this site. Mxit creator( Herman Heunis) commented on this issue on Mxit Forum (Sat Apr 12,2008 10:12pm) by stating that "this is a distressing experience for any family to go through. Mxit is available to work with the police in their investigating methods. Parents should be vigilant of their children communicating online.

The question now is, are the parents not doing enough of their job to supervise their children from using the internet or are these social networks not serious when it comes to their terms and conditions? Should they be more protective on their sites to prevent this?