Social Media As Business Tool And Security Issues

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1 Social Media As Business Tool And Security Issues ANUJ TAHLAN, AMAN CHHIBBER, ASHU PHOGAT, KIRTI DIXIT, MANSI KHANNA, KABIR KASHYAP Student Department of computer science & Engineering Dronacharya college of engineering,gurgaon ABSTRACT: "Social networking sites are already spread all around the world, with almost everyone resent on this platform. The term social networking does not exclusively belong to digital technology on the Web. Social networking is not only a social tool, but has positive business benefits for many Organizations. Social media has become an integral part of businesses these days. Facebook and other social media sites are helping small firms learn the ropes of connecting with customers over the Internet. A completely different social networking application is the virtual world as seen in Second Life. Although this can be viewed as a game, it has also attracted considerable business interest in that it can be used to pilot new ideas. Several companies have purchased territory within the Second Life world in order to build virtual copies of their company. These can be used for market research and testing purposes allowing Second Life players to interact with product concepts, for example, and examine usage without having to go the expense of creating and testing real mockups. Second Life also allows for virtual conferencing where corporates can hold a conference with attendees from multiple locations interacting in the virtual space without having to actually travel and meet physically in the real world. Social CRM can deliver insight which will help drive real customer centric Innovation. Finally, the knowledge gained on customer behaviour, attitudes and mood will help drive benefits throughout the value chain, impacting on suppliers (e.g. forecasting demand) and intermediaries (e.g. shaping in-- store promotions). Further there are security issues regarding them. An unfortunate reality of social networking applications is that they were not architected with the foresight to secure sensitive corporate data. We will look how they are helping in business and how to securely use them. Keywords: Trust, privacy, social networking sites, CRM, SCRM, business tool. INTRODUCTION: Ten years ago, the traditional ways of staying in touch with business colleagues differed little from the generation before. Although technologies such as and fax had replaced telex, when it came to group contacts, off-line networking on the golf green, at post-conference parties or at various other business events were dominant. People kept in touch via address books, and Rolodexes. In the 1980s, the Filofax was a key tool to keep in touch with all 84

2 one s contacts let s do lunch was the way to keep in touch with what friends and colleagues were up to. Social media has reinvented the relationship between companies, customers, employees, suppliers and regulators, shortening processes that used to take days or weeks down to just hours or minutes. Companies are using social media to increase efficiencies in their supply chain. Others are using social media to build new business models and new kinds of relationships with customers, employees, investors and other interested stakeholders. Major examples of Web 2.0 & social networking sites Facebook a social networking service where users create personal profiles, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their own profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organised by common characteristics (e.g. workplace). Twitter - a microblogging* service enabling its users to send and read publicly visible messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user s profile page. Users may subscribe to other users tweets. LinkedIn a business-related social networking site mainly used for professional networking. Users maintain a list of contact details of people with whom they have some level of relationship, called connections. This list of connections can then be used to build up a contact network, follow different companies and find jobs, people and business opportunities. MySpace an online community of users personal profiles. These typically include photographs, information about personal interests and blogs*. Users send one another messages and socialise within the MySpace community. YouTube.a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. A wide variety of user-generated video content is displayed, including film and TV clips as well as amateur content such as video blogging*. Media corporations including the BBC also offer some of their material via the site. Most videos enable users to leave and exchange comments. Wikipedia a collaborative web-based encyclopaedia project; its 18 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all articles are freely editable by any visitor. A prominent web 2.0 site but not an example of social networking site per se. *A blog is a type of website or part of a website usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary and descriptions of events (blogging). The content of a microblog is simply smaller in size. RECRUITMENT WITH REFERENCE TO SOCIAL MEDIA: Reference to social media is used as part of the recruitment process by a growing number of firms, particularly to vet potential candidates. According to a US survey of 2,667 HR professionals, 45 per cent check job applicants social network profiles before hiring while a further 11 per cent intended to do so over the next year (careerbuilder.com 2009). A smaller UK survey found that only 27 per cent of employers did so, although it was a more common practice in media, professional services and finance industries and less common among charities and retailers (Peacock 2008). It should also be noted that sites such as LinkedIn are professional networking sites that can be used explicitly for recruitment purposes. 2

3 There is no legislation that prohibits employers from considering information from an individual s Facebook profile when making a recruitment decision but there are a number of issues with using social networks in this way. Firstly, there are questions of privacy and the extent to which firms should have an interest in the private lives of their employees. Some HR managers feel such vetting processes are an invasion of privacy and object on principle (Peacock 2008). It is notable that in the US survey noted above, the most common reasons for rejecting candidates were lifestyle rather than employment based, for example postings that included provocative or inappropriate photographs were cited by 53 per cent of HR managers as a reason to turn down an employee (careerbuilder.om 2009). Secondly, given the amount of information available about candidates on social network sites, employers leave themselves open to charges of discrimination (Lynas 2007). By vetting candidates online, employers are likely to know a range of information about candidates including sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, marital status, age and political views, making it easier for rejected candidates to claim they have been discriminated against (Lynas 2007, Personnel Today 2010). It is relatively unusual for cases of discrimination at the point of recruitment to be brought to employment tribunals. The 2008 Survey of Tribunal Applications found that, of all cases brought involving discrimination, eight per cent were brought by claimants during or after a recruitment process. In reality, applicants usually have no information about the other candidates for comparison, and there is no evidence that social networking is necessarily more likely to give them access to this information. This places considerable onus on employers to self-regulate and act responsibly to comply with employment legislation. BUILDING CRM: Consumers of all ages interact with social media content on mobile devices, PCs, kiosks, at home, at play, at events, at work, on holiday or when travelling -- in just about any situation in much greater, and ever increasing numbers than before. In a survey of 1,700 U.S. It is found that 73% engaged in social media at least once per week. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely implemented model for managing a company s interactions with customers, clients, and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, service and retain those the company already has, entice former clients to return, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service. Customer relationship management describes a company-wide business strategy including customer-interface departments as well as other departments. Measuring and valuing customer relationships is critical to implementing this strategy. However, using social and mobile technologies needs a fine balancing act. Companies need to recognize that traditional marketing strategies do not always play well on newer channels and they need to grasp that just because they have more customer access, it doesn t mean they should use every bit of it. 67 percent of Twitter users who become followers of a brand are more likely to buy the brand's products. This sales result is due in part to a company's use of social media to convey 3

4 brand values, create positive word of mouth and enforce the connection between the company and its customers. These enhance a company's efforts to build customer loyalty. Social CRM is the business strategy of appealing customers through Social Media with aim of building trust and brand trustworthiness. Something extra in social media marketing: Social media enables the brand to extend its personality to engage with consumers on consumer terms, whatever time they want, where they play, where they work, when they are travelling and wherever they are. Companies could blow the opportunity mobile and social media marketing present unless they give the customer something more, such as directions to a store location, a coupon or market information linked to a specific product. It s all about understanding the customer, said Melissa Parrish, a senior analyst of interactive marketing at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. Any campaign can be effective if the marketer crafts it by starting with an understanding of mobile behaviors of the audience and then choosing a marketing objective that can be achieved based on that usage. As an alternative, marketers should grasp the significance of contextual marketing, when it comes to social or mobile channels, Sarner said. With users on smartphones or on social channels, marketers can tailor messages to what the customer is currently engaging in. companies can reach users based on their geographic locations and target messages to them, with smartphones in particular. Flash sales are working really well,when you have a very limited time to purchase. An example of such a type of sale is the deal of the day program that the retailer launched in August The program offers an online sale on a different item each day. The sale is posted each morning and is available for 24 hours or until the item sells out, whichever comes first. Customers can opt to receive notifications of these sales. Using Twitter for social CRM : Twitter is possibly the best network for convincing a large, general population through quick hits such as promotions. To and communicating directly with customers, it is also one of the strongest channels. The site allows a company to discover and monitor customer conversations and analyse customer data. To reach everyone create a Facebook account. However, companies may find a more targeted audience on LinkedIn, which allows registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they can use to find jobs, people and business opportunities. There is a lot of peer-to-peer sharing. Pombriant said, Social is a new and very different way of doing business. It leverages technology to perform activities that support lean relationships --which are relationships between people or entities who are not close socially but who have reason to interact efficiently at times. To establish those relationships and interact in a competitive market, a company should be in several online spaces at the same time. Social Recruiting Benefits As people are greatest asset, you need to find a means to connect with the best candidates within your industry. Social recruiting puts your organization in the mix with candidates that you would otherwise not be able to reach. This doesn t mean you need to completely replace your existing recruiting processes with social networking. Rather, you need to leverage these new tools and add them to your other means to enhance and improve your results. 4

5 When you make social recruiting a strategic initiative to find and hire potential employees, you can: Being the employer of choice: When your company establishes an online presence, you send a positive message out to potential candidates that your company is connected and understands how to communicate with them. Being the employer of choice means candidates want to work for you and spread that message across social networks, magnifying your brand and message. Reach higher-quality candidates. Individuals who frequently use social networks tend to be early adopters of innovation and also tend to be more technically savvy.3these are the traits many companies look for in potential candidates. Social networks offer a fast way to connect with these individuals. Increasing ROI. You can dramatically reduce sourcing costs and increase ROI through social networks. Freely Posting and sharing job openings all the way through Facebook or LinkedIn. This will more likely bring results than a single description on a job board that charges, so the potential value far exceeds the cost. SCRM objectives: To increase profit of trading: SCRM supports the whole customer management strategy and lifecycle. It should show the way to increased sales by increased awareness and engagement and decreased costs. The diagram illustrates the areas of benefit. Mechanisms for measuring sales behaviour: Mechanisms for measuring sales behaviour will emerge. Relationships between consumer products companies (driving brand experiences and footfall and measuring engagement) and wholesalers and retailers driving POS experience, measuring sales will emerge, combining their knowledge of customer attitudes and behaviours to deliver the right experiences and proof of success. 5

6 SOCIAL MEDIA: ORGANIZATION STRUGGLES 1. Organizations use social media to engage customers and other stakeholders to help shape the conversation around their products, services and brand. 2. Employees use social media either internally or externally. 3. External stakeholders converse publicly online about the organization, its products and services, giving the organization market insights and perspective. These three channels all cause risks to organizations. Organizations are forced to make a decision on how they manage social networking. They can secure the assets they are well known about such as business applications, employee and contractor identities, business processes and corporate networks. They incorporate industry best practices to protect and secure these assets while also working to meet various compliance and regulatory guidelines. Organizations influence corporate security policies and processes to protect the assets that they actively manage, and can measure their success while doing so. An ill-fated reality of social networking applications is that they were not architected with the insight to secure sensitive corporate data. Organizations have little or no control over these sites and also not on the content shared to these sites.. Unofficial or unregulated use of popular networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter for business purposes and industry networking is pressuring organizations to formally adopt and govern their use. Social computing is a social structure in which technology puts power in communities, not institutions. The term social holds the promise of a customer-driven business model in which customers influence business strategy and where employees respond to customer needs. Yet, despite all the hype around the technologies, the social computing revolution has barely had an impact on IT and the CIO. CIOs should take a leadership role in the transition, helping broker the changes needed across the business and garner executive support to take advantage of social computing. Examples of disciplinary action resulting from employees social media usage: Joe Gordon is widely known as the first British blogger to be dismissed for work-related comments made online (Schoneboom 2008). Gordon wrote a general, allegedly humorous, blog, entitled the Woolamaloo Gazette, about his life that occasionally touched on his work at the Edinburgh branch of the bookseller Waterstone s. The comments about work included complaining about his shift pattern, referring to his manager as evil boss and calling him a cheeky smegger for asking him to work on a bank holiday. He also referred to the firm as Bastardstone s (Gordon 2004, Barkham 2005). Gordon was dismissed from his position in early 2005 following a disciplinary hearing, but successfully challenged the decision on appeal, following the case s high profile in the media. Catherine Sanderson is a British woman who worked in France for a British law firm. Like Gordon, her blog was not strictly work-focused but did occasionally contain references to her employers, without identifying them by name. Her comments about her employers mainly involved gently mocking the conservatism of some of the senior partners. When Sanderson s employers discovered her blog, she was dismissed, provoking a huge storm of negative publicity. Sanderson took her employers to tribunal in France and received compensation for 6

7 wrongful dismissal. Employees have also been dismissed for views expressed in other forms of social media. For example, Virgin dismissed 13 staff who participated in a discussion on Facebook in which passengers were described as chavs and allegations were made that planes were full of cockroaches (Quinn 2008).The employees were disciplined on the grounds of bringing the company into disrepute. More recently, there has been considerable attention given to sportsmen and women being disciplined for comments made on social media, particularly Twitter. For example, former Liverpool footballer Ryan Babel was fined by the English Football Association for casting aspersions on the integrity of referee Howard Webb by posting a doctored photograph of Webb in a Manchester United shirt on Twitter. In another case, cricketer Kevin Pietersen was fined by the English Cricket Board for complaining about being dropped from the England squad. Measuring Results: While you might understand the value of social recruiting, you need to show executives and management that your strategy affects the bottom line. Is there a way to measure results? Can you show how you saved money or drove value? First, you need to understand where you are today with your recruiting efforts overall to begin understanding how social recruiting delivers value. Set benchmarks by tracking key metrics on your current sourcing and recruiting efforts. The right recruitment software application will provide you with this information automatically. To determine the right metrics for your organization, refer to your answers to the questions outlined in the Where to Start section of this paper. Some key metrics used in demonstrating the value of social recruiting include: Candidates per source Cost per source Hire per source Cost per hire Time to hire For every organizational objective, you can establish a measurement to determine whether or not you met that objective. Present this information to executives and management in a dashboard view. Charts and graphs are much easier to understand than numbers on a page. Again, the right recruitment software application will provide this information in a dashboard format automatically. Proper social recruiting efforts will improve your metrics over time, and you will be able to demonstrate the impact visually. The social media elements that generate business opportunity for companies to extend their brands are often the same elements that have created IT-related risk. Like the borderless nature of social media itself, the various risks surrounding social media can be borne by multiple enterprise functions at the same time, challenging companies to understand how, when and where to engage their IT functions or plug risk coverage gaps. Legal, compliance, regulatory, operational and public relations issues are at the top of the list of potential ITrelated social media risks that can ultimately cause erosion of customers, market share and revenue. 7

8 For example, on most of the popular sites Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn users are able to create company profi les and communicate on behalf of the organization through social media channels. This can create marketplace confusion because of multiple messages and different audiences, polices and practices. Challenges: Security: Sensitive information, such as your business structure and future plans, could be compromised if you share too much online Privacy: Customer and business information could be put at risk by computer hackers Measuring success: Accurately calculating the success of your social media activity can be difficult Monetization: Making your social media activities profitable can be challenging Complaints and bad reviews: Without a plan for dealing with unhappy customers, negative publicity can damage your reputation Time commitment: To be successful, you will need to commit the time needed to keep your content fresh and to respond to your customers Creating a solid social media strategy can help you successfully deal with these challenges. For example, setting benchmarks and tracking sales stemming from social media activities can help you determine if your efforts are generating income. Having a plan for responding to criticisms and complaints shows that you take your customers' concerns seriously and can help you turn a negative experience around. Dealing with security concerns: Train your employees on social media security practices and make sure they are familiar with your business' social media strategy Create a secure password; it should be easy for you to remember, but difficult for others to guess Avoid using the same password on multiple sites Protect yourself against phishing schemes where criminals prompt you to provide sensitive information, such as usernames and passwords on fake log-in screens Keep your anti-virus software up to date. 8

9 The ups and downs of social media feedback The whole process is not always streamlined and clean, due to the nature of the social channels. People babble a lot on their profiles, so there is the risk to obtain useless information. Users often share the opinions of their friends without giving it a second thought, or say whatever it s more favourable for their image, which puts a great bias over your research sample. Also, the short attention span on social networks makes it hard to put together a structured feedback upon complex matters. There are good sides too, however, and they are major ones. Social channels bring a constant flow of leads, so you will never be left without voices to answer your queries. You get instant reach and you can talk directly with customers; with surveys, you also have the advantage to lead the conversation. Social media cuts the traditional delay in sending the response to the organization companies are really doing a crowd bath here, they are present right next to their customers and can collect feedback in place. Incentives can be used to foster responses, such as discount coupons for the next purchase, or special gifts presented realistically by the multimedia features of social profiles. It s best to keep those moderate, however, not to influence the answers. In conclusion, we should definitely leverage the power of social media for business feedback. The best approach should be an integrated one; don t rely solely on social networks, but make them part of a wider view. As David Parcell says in a Businesscomputing world article, good VoC programs usually operate through three dimensions: started by customers (via web, phone or chat), taking place on the social space (websites, blogs, forums, social media), and initiated by businesses. The most useful feedback your business can get is the resultant of these three combined. Conclusion: So we came to know that how useful social media in business world. How a company can use these social networking sites to enhance their business. By building a SCRM and communicating with their costumers they can create a great impact on them. Further, the brand matters a lot and by using this new approach of promoting business companies can create a positive image among the users about their brand. Also there is some risk associated to this social approach of business advancement. Security concerns are present. But by using proper management and creating good security control companies can overcome this issue. Thus social media as business tool has both pros and cons but still it is a far better and cheap as well as nice use of technology to communicate with consumers and building so called SCRM. 9

10 References: Workplaces and Social Networking The Implications for Employment Relations Ref: 11/11 (Insights on IT risk May ) PROTECTING and strengthing your brand page: social media governence and strategy. An oracle white paper : Social Recruiting Guide: How to Effectively Use Social Networks and Avoid Legal Risks (JULY 2012) Social media is not just for fun it can transform your business(buyer s guide). Neil Woodcock and Andy Green The Customer Framework, May 2010 (Social CRM as business strategy) Building a CRM strategy- E GUIDE (Sponsored by force.com). (Sanjeev Aggarwal Laurie McCabe Brent Leary Arjun Aggarwal ) 2011/12 Impact of Social Business in Small and Medium Business Study. Customer relationship management (WIKIPEDIA) : 10