Social Media. How is it effective
Social Media: How is it effective?
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Social Media: How is it effective?
Within the business and corporate industry, I have chosen to pursue a career in the finance sector. My career path is, therefore, will likely lead me to roles such as finance director in government organizations or private businesses. The corporate industry is a very demanding industry in terms of professionalism and time since in most cases; jobs in this sector are full-time jobs. It is a competitive industry that is continually changing and growing and hence the demands keep changing to keep up with new trends. Professionals who fail to keep up with change lag behind.
As a finance director, my main duty will be controlling and overseeing all the financial aspects of a company or organisation. It will involve analysing figures and making recommendations on the best financial decisions that should be taken to benefit the enterprise. I will also be charged with the responsibility of coming up with the best policies in regard to company requirements, taxation, handling debts, assets and liabilities and when making acquisitions. Other duties designated for a finance director position include formulating annual targets and budgets, dealing with auditors and more essentially, ensuring that financial records are always in order (Morris et al, 2009). In realising my career development, social media will play a critical role.
Currently, there are three main social media sites that have gained enormous popularity, and are: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. They are the most commonly used sites socially all over the world attracting users of all ages, races, ethnic backgrounds and from all regions around the world. However, there are similarities among the three sites as well as differences that make each one of them to be unique. The main basic similarity among the three social avenues is they enable and enhance sharing of information as well as promoting connection and interaction among people. While for LinkedIn the key social context is forming business relations and interaction, Facebook and Twitter has largely been used for social interaction. LinkedIn can, therefore, be said to incline more towards the professional development since it enables individual to get in touch with persons from their field more easily as compared to Facebook and Twitter. On the other hand, Twitter differs from the other two since it limiest the number of characters per post. This element encourages brevity and keen choice of words when communicating to one’s followers. From a business perspective, this is crucial and essential as it ensures that information is relayed to the audience (followers) in fewest words possible. Also, social media experts point out that Twitter is more immediate and has a better real-time feel when relaying information as compared to the other two. This, therefore, puts the business out there and enhances the brand more so with the use of trending topics and hash tags. In conclusion, businesses ought to embrace these three avenues so as to be in touch with customers and clients (Wankel et al, 2010)
There are various business uses of social media especially when it comes to employing as well as identifying business opportunities. For businesses, job opportunities are posted online, and those interested are asked to respond before making formal application. This gives the employer a chance to scrutinise and have a feel of the potential employee gauging from how he or she interacts with others on social media. Also, the presence of businesses online builds their brand name as well as creates an avenue for getting new business ideas from the customers. For my career path, social media is essential. It enables me to learn what employers expect of me and what academic qualifications make me to be better suited for the job of a finance director in the future.
However, a number of challenge and obstacles arise when one uses social media for career development. The venture may be time consuming, extremely competitive and in some instances may turn out to be overwhelming. In networking with other professionals, a lot of time is required to interact with various people so as to gain worthy insights on the best course of action. It is quite competitive especially if one gets interacting with key players in the industry, with whom many other social media users also want to interact with. These two factors make it overwhelming either when one gets the attention or ends up being ignored. All these three issues can be handled by establishing oneself as a mature social media user in order to gain admiration of colleagues and hence can easily request for their attention and time. This is of benefit as one gets to grow professionally by interacting with the best (Brown, 2010).
References
Brown, E. (2010). Working the Crowd: Social Media Marketing for Business. Swindon: British Informatics Society.
Morris, G. D., McKay, S., & Oates, A. (2009). Finance director’s handbook. Amsterdam: CIMA.
Wankel, C., Marovich, M., & Stanaityte, J. (2010). Cutting-edge social media approaches to business education: Teaching with LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Second Life, and blogs. Charlotte, N.C: Information Age Pub.
