Benefits Of Social Media

1841 Words4 Pages

Gone are the days when enterprises were hesitant to use social media in the business environment. Today using social media is not an option, but rather way of business. Social Media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks (wikipedia). There are many types of social media platforms: blogs such as WordPress, microblogs such as Twitter, video sharing sites such as Flickr and YouTube, social networking sites such as Facebook, and professional networking sites such as LinkedIn (isaca.org). Social media provides many benefits such as increased brand recognition, customer loyalty, marketing channels, 24/7 communication channel, and to build personal, professional and organizational networks. While social media provides many potential benefits, there are four risks areas, organizational, data, people and technology. Enterprises wanting to use social media must adopt a social media strategy that is integrated with overall organizational strategy to address risks, along with appropriate governance and assurance measures. Auditing social media should be done to ensure that risks are properly identified and controls are adequate to address the issues, concerns and the risks.
Uses/Benefits
Social media provides many tangible benefits leading to cost savings and increased revenues. The ability to tweet or post a message is more cost effective than placing a paid ad or mailing thousands of marketing pieces (adsolutions.yp.com). With advanced advertising tools, businesses can easily tailor ads to target audiences. Businesses can offer better customer service by quickly responding to customer comments, concerns and questions. Social me...

... middle of paper ...

...Conclusion
The use of social media is becoming very popular that has significant implications for both businesses and individuals. While social media offers great opportunities to interact with customers and businesses partners in new and exciting ways, there are prominent risks to those who use this technology without a clear strategy that addresses both the benefits and the risks (isaca.org). Restricting the use of social media to avoid the risks is not a viable option, therefore enterprise should involve all the relevant stakeholders to develop a strategy and associated policies to address the issues arising from the use of social media. Since this an emerging communication technology and companies are novice at using and addressing risks related to social media, auditing should be implemented to properly address the concerns and risks of social media usage.

Open Document