Social Media 2.0

We all know that social media is an instant hype. Twitter, Facebook, Hyves and LinkedIn are used by millions of people all over the world. Research about social media gives scientific insights on the role, purpose and meaning of social media. Therefore, organizations, communication-PR professionals and marketeers can apply the knowledgde gained from research within their own company.

Research showed that half of the companies in the US start with the integration of social media within their organization, without a plan or strategy. Making a blog or twitter account does not cost any money and is very easy to do. The effects of these "free" applications can have less effect than carefully tailor made social media applications that suits the company. Organizations do see the benefits of the use of social media internally, but do not have enough resources to produce an effective social media strategy. Besides this, "old fashioned management" do not even want to make (a little) money free to invest in social media.

Companies with young employees can definitely benefit from the implemenation of social media within the company. Blogs can show the real feelings, problems and other issues that employees face during their daily work, Twitter can be easily used to spread important information within 2 seconds, Yammer can be used as a forum where everyone can give input and feedback on whatever is going on in the organization and LinkedIn can be actively used for recruitment and sharing knowledge.

Besides using social media internally, it has external benefits as well. When visitors of the website of an organization see that the company is actively involved in social media, it sends the message that the organization is keeping up with the trends as they are nowadays and are open for new ideas. It shows that the company has an open culture, involves their employees, gives them a voice as well, and is fresh and young. It might be difficult to start with applying social media in business, but social media will become and is the future, it cannot be denied anymore. To keep up, organizations need to apply social media rapidly, otherwise they will get behind, so don't think about it, just do it!