Question

) Using Figure 8.5 of the textbook as a guide, describe how the company could use social media information systems. Include community type, specific focus, processes involved and risks. Your answer must address any three of the following components of the value chain: a) sales & marketing, b) customer service, c) inbound logistics, d) outbound logistics, e) manufacturing & operations, f) human resources. (3 points)

Answer 1

Social media used in value Chain by following points with coverage of community type, specific focus, processes involved and risks.

(A) .Sales and Marketing

use of social media to facilitate exchanges between consumers and organizations. It’s valuable to marketers because it provides inexpensive access to consumers and a variety of ways to interact and engage consumers at different points in the purchase cycle.

Analyse the Community to whom our product is targeted like age group, culture, community, education level its also covered under specific focus that to whom we want to sale.

Figure out where your target customers are spending their time online, and use the same social channels that they use   

The best practice for making the most of your time is to concentrate on a few key platforms, rather than using up precious resources building multiple accounts.

Process involved

Build your brand

Social media gives you visibility, lets you start conversations, and provides an opportunity to start building trust.

Your company’s image can be enhanced when you post regular updates to Facebook and Twitter, which demonstrates that you are a modern, proactive business with a continual interest in industry developments.

Generate leads and sales

Your client base is on social media, and most of them use it to help make purchasing decisions.

Nurture client relationships

Social media can contribute to your sales strategy because it lets you subtly but constantly alert customers to new products and services.

Position your company as a thought leader

You can share your knowledge and come across as an authority in your field when you use social media to educate and engage your target audience, including current clients, prospect, peers and vendors

he more you know about your target audience – what they want and what conversations they’re engaged in – the more successful you’ll be. What are your audience’s demographics and interests? What sites do they frequent? What social channels do they use and what captures their attention there? And as you build your social following, you’ll gain many of these insights.

RIsk

1. Damage to brand reputation. It is vital for companies to match the quality of their social media pages with the reputation that they’ve built for their brand. The image of a business today is largely conveyed through its online activity, making it essential to manage a business’s online content. To avoid damage to your brand, your business must be respectful of its audience and think before clicking the post button. Insensitive posts have caused controversy for many companies

2.Inconsistency. Businesses often rush into social media without knowing what they’re getting into or a plan of action. Incomplete or outdated social media pages will reflect poorly on your business if not managed. A company Facebook page that hasn’t been updated in a year is no way to represent your brand. The best way to avoid an inconsistent online image is to create a social media plan and stick to it. Know the platforms that are worth using, and the ones that can be avoided. By sticking to a plan and routinely updating your pages with interesting content, your brand will keep a consistent image and remain competitive.

1. Overuse. On the flipside of having outdated media pages, some businesses make the mistake of overwhelming their followers with too many posts that are tedious or unnecessary. The best advice here is to not mistake quantity for quality. Just because you’re posting often doesn’t mean you’re posting well. Social media posts should entertain and educate customers, not beg for their attention and engagement. Know what your customers want to see and limit it to that. A good place to start is by researching how often leaders in your industry post on social media.

1. Account hacking. Your business’s brand is constantly subject to online scrutiny, and the last thing you need is a hacker compromising the integrity of your product or service. The smallest mistake in your social media use can lead to mistrust from your customers. Major businesses have fallen victim to the threat of online hackers.

(B) Inbound Logistic

more than one billion people use social networks today. Social media is the next level of business opportunities and engagement. It creates a two-way communication that enables customer feedback and response in real-time. As the freight and logistics sector grows, it is essential to work with technology and media to drive efficiencies to connect with clients.

In the logistics and freight-forwarding industry, social media is used as a tool for business only. There aren’t any interactions with customer. Companies are unaware of the parameter of social media comments about services or even the system. These tools might pose helpful information for the freight forwarder and its management. The challenge lies how companies handle the reviews and collect the information together to provide valuable data

· Shipment schedules can be updates faster; there is an increase in the tracking and visibility of your supply chain.

• Getting important information about accidents, road closures from social media about freight transportation to re-route the deliveries.
• Be informed about weather conditions and other natural aspects that might affect your shipment or deliveries.
• Learn more about the latest trends and other valuable insights from customers and leaders of industry.
• Share or obtain data for risk identification, and reveal the dangers in your supply chain.
• Search and collect innovative ideas from different points of view to further improve your business offers.
• Reach out to new employees, customers, business partners and opportunities.
• Increase your relationship with your business partners and your customers. Social media provides your company reviews and feedback from customers and so you can improve your service.

inbound logistics comes with risk

nature of the transaction’s contractual obligations

the payment term listed on inbound freight can have a drastic effect on freight Cost

payment in advance

provides a direction for the liability of a shipment

shippers that use these terms unknowingly may be paying for an artificially inflated cost of shipping,

(C) Human Resource

Community type: human resource department of every company Screening people via social media networking or advertisement they follow people profile readout their database their education which type of people they want.

All the information about the person to whom company hire they get like age ,culture , living style , working position etc.

Specific Focus: Human resource department can easily identify about people to whom they hire ,what’s their specialization, their current work area and experiences, past performances goals they achieved ,their interest ,how they like to do work .

Process:

Screening and Hiring Applicants

Even in the Information Age privacy rights are still cherished by many. As today’s children complain that their parents violate their privacy, parents gleefully remind them that they have no private lives when they post everything on Instagram. Sadly, human resource professionals cannot adopt that attitude when it comes to screening job applicants and hiring new employees. The laws regarding equal employment that forbid discrimination for factors like age, gender or national origin have not changed even though a human resource professional can view pictures and text that would raise red flags about an otherwise qualified candidate. The Society of Human Resource Management suggests that human resource managers create policies to protect themselves and their organizations from allegations of discrimination by assigning a third-party person to screen applicants based on specific criteria for jobs. In this way, hiring managers can make their decisions about job applicants without knowing characteristics about them like race, ethnicity or marital status.

Training and Developing Talent

The days of developing educational materials and then travelling to different company sites to deliver training to employees is a thing of the past thanks to certain technological improvements. Training and development staff can now create customized computer based training modules and deploy them online for the benefit of employees around the world. Online social platforms expand learning options because they create collaborative environments for students and instructors to share and discuss knowledge informally.

Announcing Corporate Changes

executive officers love to share good news to appropriate stakeholders, it is the human resource manager that is usually responsible for announcing bad news or other significant organizational changes to individuals and business divisions. Social media platforms like Twitter allow human resource managers to efficiently broadcast announcements to large groups at once which cuts down on rumors that create temporary anxiety among employees. These platforms also facilitate question and answer sessions that are always needed when companies roll out new policies, procedures and systems.

Obtaining Feedback About the Company

Human resource professionals primarily care about measuring and improving employee performance. However, modern managers are also concerned with how the companies for which they work are perceived in the marketplace. When online social platforms are fully exploited, human resource managers can glean candid, positive and negative feedback about company policies, hiring practices and culture from sources like current staff, job applicants and even former employees.

Risk:

Social media often contains far more information than an employer needs to know. For example, social media accounts can easily divulge things like an applicant’s religion, sexual orientation, inclusion in a protected class, personal and/or family health status, and more. These are the types of things that may be discriminatory to use as part of the hiring decision—and it becomes more difficult to defend against a discrimination claim when there is evidence that the hiring team knew of such characteristics during the decision-making process.

Using social media background checks as a required part of background screening can inadvertently leave out some applicants who do not have social media accounts. If the organization refuses to hire someone who cannot be screened via social media, it may have a disparate impact on individuals who do not have the resources to maintain a social media account. This could be an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) concern.

There is little an employer or recruiter can do to confirm that information found on a social media page is true

There’s always the risk of looking at the wrong person’s account

There’s also the risk of fake profiles, which can be made by applicants who create a “public” persona (complete with “clean” social media profiles) and hide their private/real profile from view. Fake profiles can also exist when the person in question has had their account spoofed—which happens more often than we realize—and the applicant may not even know.

Like any part of the hiring process, there’s a risk involved if the hiring team does not treat all applicants consistently. There can be an elevated risk of discrimination claims if the hiring team only checks the social media accounts for some individuals but not all. Or, if the organization only utilizes the information in some cases.