by By Talia Smith, @talmarie123, https://www.linkedin.com/in/talmarie123
Last Monday, Professor Damien Radcliffe spoke to the class about social media trends. One trend we can look out for is the integration of social media as a communication tool in work settings. Last year, Facebook launched Workplace, a professional version of the social media platform. Within a company’s account, users can create a Workplace profile, post important updates, create events and group message. It can do pretty much anything Facebook can but its gray color scheme serves as a reminder that Workplace is intended, well, for the workplace.
According to a Business Insider article, the app has its pros and cons, one major pro being the lack of learning curve since so many people are familiar with Facebook’s layout to begin with. However, some employees are having a hard time differentiating between Facebook’s professional and “unprofessional” versions. Employers are noticing certain Facebook habits carry over into Workplace, such as tldr (too long, didn’t read) syndrome. In order to overcome this problem, users recommend sharing lengthy information along with a picture or graph.
Businesses would be lying to themselves if they think Workplace could take the place of regular Facebook for mental health breaks during the day. According to a Pew Research Survey, 34% of Americans use social media to take a mental break while on the job while 17% say they use social media to strengthen professional relationships. Cubicle dwellers can still live in fear of being busted on Facebook because of the option to toggle between Workplace and Facebook, a feature that makes it tempting to just quickly see what’s happening outside of the company.
Of course, as an office you want to make sure that you create the perfect working environment, so make sure that you have the right sort of furniture, stationery, anything that you need to keep your employees happy. Even if this means that you will have to go and buy new equipment from sites like officemonster.co.uk. At the end of the day though, if your employees are happy working for you, they will be happy working with this Facebook app as well.
Workplace is not the only professional communication tool on the market. There’s also Yammer, Slack and Jive to name a few. While there is more of a learning curve to these programs, it might be more advantageous to a company to have a separate work social media.
Is it better to have an enterprise communication tool separate from a previously established social media platform? What are your thoughts? Do you think Workplace would be too tempting to toggle back to Facebook during the workday?
Whether your future place of employment decides to use Workplace, Yammer or Slack, we know that office communication is changing for the better by relying less on email. By dropping the formality that comes with email communication in a work setting and utilizing the communication methods that come with an effective intranet solution (https://www.interact-intranet.com/), employees can get their message across quickly and efficiently with team messaging programs.
Great post Talia, you really bring up some interesting questions involving communication in the workplace. I could foresee the temptation of toggling between Facebook and Workplace an issue and create a less productive workplace. For my internship I personally run my company’s Instagram and have the option to toggle to my personal Instagram profile without logging out of my company’s so the temptation is definitely there at times. I think outside communication tools such as Slack is a better tool to utilize to keep work and personal life more separate.
This was an interesting read and it got me thinking. I also didn’t know about Workplace, so find that intriguing. I can see how the similarity of Facebook and Workplace can backfire more than benefit. I personally think Workplace should be able to integrate well within the professional space and could improve communication and efficiency. If professionals use social media as mental health breaks, why not make their workspace better too? I feel as though social media will still give off a different vibe and serve a different purpose overall. I appreciate your use of statistics throughout, it makes it a lot more credible and easy to connect to the post content.