Implementing A Digital Communication Strategy: Evaluating Relevant Sources

The assessment task requires you to search and locate ten (10) sources in total that will be useful for completing your proposal and report for Assessment 2a and 2b. All resources must be from reliable academic sources, such as articles or academic journals. These resources must relate to your topic, which is on implementing a digital communication strategy within an organisation. Therefore, it is important that you have thought about what type of strategy you wish to focus on before you start your research.

Some examples you might consider include:

• Using Social Media in the workplace to communicate
• Communicating companywide employee recognition
• Boosting workplace motivation through innovative communication tools
• Implementing instant messaging/group messaging, discussion forums and chatrooms in the workplace

Evidence of Sources

The main aim of the assignment is to analyze various sources and evaluate the findings to ensure that the objectives are met and the social media impact on communication within the workplace is understood, The sources are validated and reliable, which have helped in obtaining the most relevant information and accomplish the objectives with much ease and efficiency.

Source 1: Majchrzak, A., Faraj, S., Kane, G. C., & Azad, B. (2013). The contradictory influence of social media affordances on online communal knowledge sharing. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(1), 38-55.

According to Majchrzak et al., (2013), the social media adoption by the business organizations include various internet based technologies so that the users can communicate with each other, edit, share, evaluate and develop content that consist of information and knowledge. The employees of Telstra can use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Chatter, etc. to manage social tagging, overcome the innovation challenges and ensure successful sharing and exchange of cross-functional knowledge and information. The creation of content helps in distributing the knowledge beyond the actual projects and can assist in maintaining a strong workforce where people can communicate with each other easily as well as manage collaboration and innovation all throughout with the consideration of new ideas and opinions. The social media platforms act as useful tools for enhancing the potential for undertaking an action, furthermore ensure online knowledge sharing and leverage within the specific domain and various sets of actions undertaken. The social media influence is immense and it has transformed the knowledge sharing process from centralized to decentralized, which has helped in posting information  and it has been circulated to the other team members. The social media platforms are also involved to move from intermittent to continuous flow and exchange of information and knowledge, which has led to the engagement during conversations through employee engagement and better communal conversations online.  

Source 2: Leftheriotis, I., & Giannakos, M. N. (2014). Using social media for work: Losing your time or improving your work?. Computers in Human Behavior, 31, 134-142.

Leftheriotis & Giannakos (2014) stated that the social media can not only improve the ability to perform to the potential, but may also affect the time consumption. The social media usage by employees allows them to discuss about certain aspects and engage with the other employees within the organization, which facilitates the generation of new ideas and opinions and ensures impacting the work performance positively too. At Telstra, the social media is used or various purposes and is protected with the Enterprise Social Network or ESN which is a web based service, to improve the communication process, furthermore launch internal deployment of social networking websites. This further allows for sharing and exchange of both personal and professional information with each other within the corporate intranet. With the sharing and exchange of knowledge and information, more employees are engaged and are kept motivated, which strengthens the relationships between employees and facilitates the process of recruitment and selection. Though, social media involvement has improved the communication, still spending more time on the social networking websites has reduced the production level and performances of the employees. Thus, the social media usage can both promote better work performance and at the same time, degrade performance through loss of time.

Source 1: Majchrzak et al., (2013)

Source 3: Leonardi, P. M., Huysman, M., & Steinfield, C. (2013). Enterprise social media: Definition, history, and prospects for the study of social technologies in organizations. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(1), 1-19.

According to Leonardi, Huysman & Steinfield (2013), the use of social media and its significance has been understood here and its probable positive impacts within the workplace of Telstra. The enterprise social media ensures transformational of social media used to improve the communication process and manage conversations between the employees to form work relations. The social media platforms are mainly used in the enterprises to manage communication with the external parties and develop a strong multi-prolonged strategy that could be applied to various platforms and broadcast messages and information on the micro blogging websites. The internal communication and social interaction are promoted, which can make more people aware and at the same time, evaluate the messages and information obtained along with better visibility and persistence. It is true that the messages when set to people through various networks remain visible to the other people working within the organization and this provides better visibility of knowledge and information through management of meta knowledge and generate new ideas for smooth business functioning.

Source 4: Huang, J., Baptista, J., & Galliers, R. D. (2013). Reconceptualizing rhetorical practices in organizations: The impact of social media on internal communications. Information & Management, 50(2-3), 112-124.

Internal communications are considered as integral aspects that facilitate the communication process within the organization and at the same time, ensure social media leveraged engagement in the knowledge and information sharing. The use of social media in corporate intranets has transformed the entire way of persuasion and the messages and information are transferred with a strategic intent to generate consensus in different kinds of situations. It has served as function responsible for bringing institutional change and even can provide more scopes and opportunities to restructure the organization and ensure that the redundancies are reduced to create long term impact on the form of wellbeing of the organization. According to Huang, Baptista& Galliers (2013), multiple voices are managed, which has facilitated the targeted communication and managed greater reach to the employees with the utilization of social media platforms. The centralized control has engaged more audiences and created positive dual relationships that can improve the organizational culture. It is not only important for people to work as an unit in coordination, but also for sustaining fluidity and openness in the emblematic business practices to encourage new behaviors all throughout.

Source 5: Bucher, E., Fieseler, C., & Suphan, A. (2013). The stress potential of social media in the workplace. Information, Communication & Society, 16(10), 1639-1667.

Bucher, E., Fieseler, C., & Suphan (2013) agreed to the fact that the social media influences the professionalism at work and redefines the professional literacy at work by promoting consistent communication and enabling professional literacy. It is always important to possess relevant skills and knowledge for dealing with individuals and communicate various aspects, furthermore empower the individuals in the professional communication environment. The major dimensions of literacy combine the essential skills and knowledge of the individuals and ensure combining independent and concrete skills depending upon the social, cultural and technological variables. This would not only improve the cognitive and practice skills, but would also enhance the autonomous conceptualization of literacy, which is equivalent to the mastery of more skills’ sets. In some cases, there has been stress and people have been spending more time on social media rather than with the families, which has also deteriorated the work performance.

Source 6: Vaast, E., & Kaganer, E. (2013). Social media affordances and governance in the workplace: An examination of organizational policies. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 19(1), 78-101.

According to the information provided in the journal presented by Vaast & Kaganer (2013), it is found that the organizations like Telstra has used the social media platforms to create new ways of remaining connected with the customers, manage collaboration and facilitate innovation process too. The employees have easily managed to mobilize the resources, implemented new ideas and checked the feasibility to ensure that the outcomes are positive and are not based on any prior assumptions. Vaast & Kaganer (2013) argued that the social media has created impacts on the organization related to the culture; innovation processes and facilitated the corporate governance structure too. The organizational policies are represented as documents that include the guiding principles and have been established by the senior management, which are later transferred and circulated to the employees. The policies are considered as important tools of social media governance and encouraged better visibility, persistence, association and ability to make changes and edit the governance structure mechanisms too.

Source 7: Ioan?s, E., & Stoica, I. (2014). Social media and its impact on consumers behavior. International Journal of Economic Practices and Theories, 4(2), 295-303.

From the article presented by Ioan?s & Stoica (2014), it is understandable that the social media usage by the businesses like Telstra has benefited the readiness to gain acceptance by the customers. The social media platforms have created ease in marketing the products and it has lead to greater brand exposure, which made many people aware of the products and services of Telstra. Thus, it is believed that the social media usage has attracted more customers and resulted in higher sales and revenue generation.

Source 8: De Choudhury, M., & Counts, S. (2013, February). Understanding affect in the workplace via social media. In Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work (pp. 303-316). ACM.

Based on the information provided by De Choudhury & Counts (2013), the internet dominance in the present era has enabled web based technologies to surface and has facilitated the entire way of communication. The use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram has created convenience for the employees to communicate with each other and influenced the way of sharing and exchange information to develop a sense of connectedness. There have behavioral influences and sometimes the behavioral traits achieved through social media involvement have created stress and job related anxiety too.  The geographic distancing has made many of the workers unable to communicate with other and with the use of social media, accessibility to workers outside the organization has been easy with management of proper skill sets and achieving the objectives of sales and marketing in business.

Source 9: Ali-Hassan, H., Nevo, D., & Wade, M. (2015). Linking dimensions of social media use to job performance: The role of social capital. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 24(2), 65-89.

According to Ali-Hassan, Nevo & Wade (2015), the three major dimensions such as the structural, relational and cognitive dimensions are considered. The development of relationships between the usage of Facebook and social capital has helped in evaluating the social relations and cognition that are beyond the structural dimension. The structural dimension includes social ties and relationships’ networks that are formed between the employees and they sense belonging and connection through conversations via social media platforms. Thus, the use of social media has narrowed down the lack of accessibility and communication between people and established a network that has enabled people stay connected with others, irrespective of the distance and time. It has also improved the social capital and enhanced the effectiveness of social media to mange communication between employees at workplace.

Source 10: Mishra, K., Boynton, L., & Mishra, A. (2014). Driving employee engagement: The expanded role of internal communications. International Journal of Business Communication, 51(2), 183-202.

According to Mishra, Boynton & Mishra (2014), internal communications are part of the overall strategic communication and are based on how the employees remain connected with each other. With the use of social media, the employers have made them aware of their knowledge and skills required to manage their job roles and become more associated with the customers,. This has increased the communication process effectiveness and ensured increase in production level and streamlining of organizational roles and responsibilities too. The social media usage acted as convenient tools to make sure that the communication processes are successful, which has helped in engaging the employees altogether and made them work as an unit to bring out the best for benefiting the company as well.

Conclusion

The main purpose of the assignment was to assess the evidences in the form of analysis and interpretation of information presented in the journals and articles. The resources were useful and it helped in linking the various aspects and finally derived a conclusion in the end, thereby proving that the social media had created a positive impact in the workplace.

References

Ali-Hassan, H., Nevo, D., & Wade, M. (2015). Linking dimensions of social media use to job performance: The role of social capital. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 24(2), 65-89.

Bucher, E., Fieseler, C., & Suphan, A. (2013). The stress potential of social media in the workplace. Information, Communication & Society, 16(10), 1639-1667.

De Choudhury, M., & Counts, S. (2013, February). Understanding affect in the workplace via social media. In Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work (pp. 303-316). ACM.

Huang, J., Baptista, J., & Galliers, R. D. (2013). Reconceptualizing rhetorical practices in organizations: The impact of social media on internal communications. Information & Management, 50(2-3), 112-124.

Ioan?s, E., & Stoica, I. (2014). Social media and its impact on consumers behavior. International Journal of Economic Practices and Theories, 4(2), 295-303.

Leftheriotis, I., & Giannakos, M. N. (2014). Using social media for work: Losing your time or improving your work?. Computers in Human Behavior, 31, 134-142.

Leonardi, P. M., Huysman, M., & Steinfield, C. (2013). Enterprise social media: Definition, history, and prospects for the study of social technologies in organizations. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(1), 1-19.

Majchrzak, A., Faraj, S., Kane, G. C., & Azad, B. (2013). The contradictory influence of social media affordances on online communal knowledge sharing. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(1), 38-55.

Mishra, K., Boynton, L., & Mishra, A. (2014). Driving employee engagement: The expanded role of internal communications. International Journal of Business Communication, 51(2), 183-202.

Vaast, E., & Kaganer, E. (2013). Social media affordances and governance in the workplace: An examination of organizational policies. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 19(1), 78-101.