We strive to keep you up-to-date on all the latest small business advice and social media marketing trends, so when they come together, we very excited. Vala Afshar, CMO for Enterasys Networks, wrote a great article for Huff Post Tech titled How Social Media Has Forever Changed the Way We Work. The article is full of insights that can help your small business make the most of modern technology in the workplace.

Some of the areas that Afshar highlights include:

• Collective intelligence – Using social media “to leverage the experience and wisdom of an entire workforce to solve a problem or identify an opportunity instead of just relying on a specific team.”
• Easy to find people and information – Afshar writes, “mail and static intranets are the default forms of communication and collaboration within many organizations. This leads to around 25-30 percent of an employee’s work week spent in front of email and a large amount of duplicated content. Enterprise collaboration platforms have enabled a much more effective way to find people and information. A way which is self-sufficient (meaning you don’t need to ask anyone for anything) and empowering to the employees.”
• Leaders with a voice – In addition to leaders with executive or managerial authority, social media can allow internal employees to share their thoughts and information on topics they’re passionate about, becoming leaders within the organization on those issues.
• Transparency – Afshar explains, “There is greater insight for employees to understand not just what is happening in their organization but how their individual contributions are impacting something greater. Managers and executives are now able to interact and engage with anyone at any level and vice versa. Entry level employees can communicate and share information directly with top-level executives and executives have the opportunity to discover and recognize employees and their ideas in a public way.”

Social media is offering businesses some great opportunities to evolve into leaner, more competitive entities. Afshar concludes his article, “The ability to connect and engage with people and information anywhere, anytime, and on any device is fundamentally changing everything we know about how we work, how we lead, and how we manage and it all started with the consumer web and social media. Now, these changes in behavior and technology and rapidly entering enterprises. The smart organizations are the ones who recognize this and are evolving to become collaborative organizations.”

Are you using or planning on using social media to transform your small business or organization?

© 2013, Skadeedle. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.