Hootesuite Module

Accelerate your Social Transformation: Social Media Education for Employees

Kean University COMM 3533-01
May 14, 2015

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This module features three social media experts: Dr. William J. Ward, a professor at
Syracuse University, Jeanette Gibson, an employee at Hootesuite, and Michelle Lockett, an
employee at Wiley. They all take part in, in-depth discussions regarding the skill gap associated
with employees in the workplace, and how to advance employee social media skill sets. Since
social media is ever-changing and always evolving, it is important to keep employees up to date
through various forms of social media education. Organizations can utilize different social media
platforms both internally and externally. All three experts discuss the issues surrounding this
topic, as well as how to improve them.
It is no surprise that social media is a massive part of our every-day lives. Expert Dr.
William J. Ward said that, Nothing has changed. Everything is different. What he means by
this is that the way we socialize never changed, we just found new ways to socialize. He
introduced a chart that shows the digital forms that have replaced some of the things we used to
see on our desktops. We used to scroll through our Rolodexs to contact local business,
employees, and family. All of the connections we used to make and add into our Rolodex have
now been replaced with social media platforms like LinkedIn. We used to hang picture frames all
around the house to share with family and friends when they came over. Now, we share our
pictures through social media platforms like Instagram. Our bulletin boards where we used to
hang reminders, ideas, recipes, etc. have been reutilized through platforms like Pinterest. We
used to have a landline to call our family members on. Now, we have cell-phones and we have
apps such as Skype or FaceTime where we can actually see our family members and talk to them
through visuals on our mobile devices. Everything seems like it has changed, when in reality, we
have just evolved the way that we socialize.

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The need for a module like this is important because Dr. Ward revealed that our
technology and digital divides are no longer issues surrounding different generations. We used to
look at the difference between a person who was 20 years old and their grandparents and notice
how differently we did things. Now that almost everyone is using social media, and since it is
always changing, that digital divide is now six to twelve months. If you think about it, six
months is not that long. Not only is digital divide an issue, not many organizations are utilizing
social media to its full potential. Additionally, they have no social media education modules or
training. A lot of organizations expect their employees just to know or be able to figure out how
to utilize technology.
Three outside sources look at social medias impact of business and decision-making.
How media use reflects norms and affects performance, and how previous experience with social
media shapes the technologys meaning in an organization. The first article focuses on the
impacts that social media and social media networks have on social media peer groups and
professional decision makers. Customers, as well as prospects have instant access to several
social media platforms where they can discuss their ideas, experiences, and knowledge (Bulmer,
& DiMauro, 2009). An important role for this is to utilize the tools and mediums before engaging
in decision-making (Bulmer, & DiMauro, 2009). They found that social media increases the
strength of decision-making and changes the dynamic of customer relationship management,
marketing and communications (Bulmer, & DiMauro, 2009). They recommend being part of a
peer network or an online community for sharing ideas that were formed inside of an office
setting (Bulmer, & DiMauro, 2009).
The next article provides support for the existence of dominant media norms and
describes their influence on employees perceptions of organizational norms, their reported

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media use, and their performance evaluations (Warisse Turner, Grube, Tinsley, Lee, & OPell,
2006). The results show a strong presence of organizational norms for instant messaging (IM)
and e-mail use within large high-tech organizations (Warisse Turner, Grube, Tinsley, Lee, &
OPell, 2006). They also found that norms and supervisory behaviors could influence an
employees use of IM and e-mail more so when employees have strong polychromic orientations
(Warisse Turner, Grube, Tinsley, Lee, & OPell, 2006). Additionally, employees who followed
the norms by using IM and e-mail had higher performance ratings by their supervisors (Warisse
Turner, Grube, Tinsley, Lee, & OPell, 2006).
The final article explains the expectations that employees have regarding ESM, or
enterprise social media (Treem, Dailey, Pierce, & Leonardi, 2015). They compared views of
technology with existing workplace communication technologies and publicly available social
media (Treem, Dailey, Pierce, & Leonardi, 2015). They found that differences in technology
frames regarding ESM were related to an employees age, and their level of personal social
media usage (Treem, Dailey, Pierce, & Leonardi, 2015). Their findings emphasized how
interpretations of technology could shift over time and across contexts in unique ways for
difference individuals (Treem, Dailey, Pierce, & Leonardi, 2015).
As for any press and news article found regarding the module, there were three articles
ttitled, Can we Really be Social at Work?, The Social Company is Already with Us, and
2015: Social HR Becomes a Reality. The first article, Can we Really be Social at Work?
featured an interview with Julian Mills, who is head of Corporate Intranet and Internal Social
Media at Bank of Montreal. He was interviewed on the use of collaboration tools in the
workplace. The interviewer and author noted that firms were utilizing enterprise social tools to
help their employees become more productive and collaborate and wanted to know if it was

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actually possible to be social at work. Julian replied and said that he has learned that people are
actually more productive when interacting with each other outside of work on social media
(Belbey, 2015).
The second article, The Social Company is Already with Us, delves into ideas
surrounding social networks in a professional context that have been generally viewed as
negative. Companies see social networks as being a distraction or a waste of time, yet few are
able to realize and understand the amount of information we get from using social media (Dans,
2015). The article briefly digs into a few new social media platforms that have began to
incorporate programs that can be utilized in the workplace. Additionally, the article is really
passionate about the importance of using social media in the workplace because we are what we
share, and if we are what we share then we need to be able to use what we share and apply it to
our work environments (Dans, 2015).
Finally, the last article, 2015: Social HR Becomes a Reality, touches on the idea that
the social transformation within HR departments is ever changing. The author notes that 2015
will be the year where HR departments begin to utilize intelligent mobile user experience, in
order to guide their access to HR resources (Meister, 2015). Employees will begin to rely on
the employer to have the same social experience as they do with other apps that they use on their
phones such as Uber or Seamless (Meister, 2015). The HR departments use of a social network
will allow the adoption for recruitment, time and attendance, learning, goal setting, and internal
company newsletters (Meister, 2015). With that being said, the article went on to note that,
75% of workers now consider social business sophistication to be an important factor when
choosing an employer, and of those people the age range was 22 to 55, which proves to be a
push out of a generational gap (Meister, 2015).

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This module is so important for employees, businesses, and organizations of all shapes
and sizes because it gives the proper tools and guidance to create, expand, or renew education
and advancement in social media both internally and externally. It is a powerful tool for anyone
in the workforce to possess, and with proper training and education, workers and their employers
can reap benefits. All outside sources and popular press items really show and prove why there is
such a need for a module like this one. Social media is becoming more and more of a necessity
outside of our personal lives. Having social media or just technological advancements in the
workplace can not only increase employee moral, but can also be utilized to increase sales and
brand development.

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REFERENCES

Belbey, J. (2015, March 25). Can We Really be Social at Work? Forbes. Retrieved May 2015,
from http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannabelbey/2015/03/25/can-we-really-be-social-at-work/

Bulmer, D., & DiMauro, V. (2009). Executive Summary from the Society for New
Communications Research Study: The New Symbiosis of Professional Networks: Social Media's
Impact on Business and Decision-Making. Journal Of New Communications Research, 4(2), 93100.

Dans, E. (2015, January 15). The Social Company is Already With Us. Forbes. Retrieved May
2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2015/01/15/the-social-company-is-alreadywith-us/

Meister, J. (2015, January 5). 2015: Social HR Becomes A Reality. Forbes. Retrieved May 1,
2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannemeister/2015/01/05/2015-social-hr-becomes-areality/

Treem, J. W., Dailey, S. L., Pierce, C. S., & Leonardi, P. M. (2015). Bringing Technological
Frames to Work: How Previous Experience with Social Media Shapes the Technology's Meaning
in an Organization. Journal Of Communication, 65(2), 396-422. doi:10.1111/jcom.12149

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Warisse Turner, J., Grube, J. A., Tinsley, C. H., Lee, C., & O'Pell, C. (2006). Exploring the
Dominant Media: How Does Media Use Reflect Organizational Norms and Affect
Performance?. Journal Of Business Communication, 43(3), 220-250.