Facebook and all the other social media startup companies are definitely using disruptive technology to run their businesses. Social networking sites created a whole new way for business to market their products and communicate with their customers. Formerly electronic communication was limited to the boundaries of email. The new social networking companies took away those boundaries and created a whole new way to communicate with lots of people at the same time.
The biggest challenges businesses are facing with social media is the astonishing pace at which bad publicity can travel. One unhappy customer can tell hundreds or thousands of people with a single post. Those people can forward it as well, and very quickly the whole world is aware of a bad situation. Businesses try to monitor these sites, but there is no way to monitor all the posts. Bad publicity travels extremely fast enough by word of mouth, now businesses have to try to keep up social media posts.
Twitter, Facebook, and My Space are the most popular social networking sites. All three are extremely different but their characteristics are very much alike. Social networks allow you to stay connected with many people at once through posts and updates. The biggest security issues businesses are facing with social networks is knowing who the person is behind the user name. It could be a competing business trying to make posts to make your business look bad. They could also be posing to get inside information about customers and business plans. Businesses must be careful with who is monitoring the social sites for them and make sure they are not divulging too much information about their business.
Many larger businesses are joining the social networking trend and adding their own social networking sites to communicate with internal employees. By having a live internal social networking site, company updates can be posted on the site instead of having to notify all employees by email. Sites can be viewed and employees can communicate and learn with employees all over the country.
Trying to find ways to generate extra revenue from social networking sites is very challenging and tricky. Just a rumor about a site beginning to charge usage fees will send users to the other sites. Social networking sites are extremely popular because they are free to use. Advertising will always be the main revenue source for these sites, and popularity is the key to gaining the lion’s share of advertising dollars.