An overview of the current and future potential of using social media for knowledge management

Social media (social environments): blogs, social networks, social news, wikis, forums, message boards, message boards, blogs and podcasts. Social media is posed by the user and can take many different forms. Some types of social media are forums, blogs, wikis and podcasts. Social media applications: YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, and Google.

Knowledge Management is divided similarly into knowledge system, networks, knowledge workers and learning organization. Networks are important for knowledge capture, knowledge-building and sharing. Knowledge Management and Social Media have similar ideal, the support of sharing knowledge. Knowledge Management is often practiced by older professionals, Social Media has captured the imagination of a younger crowd.

Many people will be using social media for knowledge management because the social media sites are being improved to be usable in the areas of research. Some companies such the Salesforce.com uses the knowledge-management systems, programs that harness the power of social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, track a company’s buzz online, by supporting creation, capturing, storing and dissemination of information, to control the social media in order to use its power. Furthermore, OneRiot is another company that uses social media to track company buzz around the Web.

Most companies will use the social media to capture, store, and share information with the employees and customers and apply its knowledge in the future. (Bergeron, 2003) comments that knowledge management should form part of the knowledge workers daily responsibilities, however not as a discipline.

In business there must be knowledge management, for (Bergeron, 2003) defined it as the ability to selectively capture, archive, and access the best work-related knowledge and decision making from employees and managers. In the microblogs, Edmodo, KLiHK and Chatterous, I captured new learning, insights, ideas and opinions and I know much better what the world is thinking and feeling. On twitter I am able to express my opinions, find people with similar interest through the mechanism of traditional search of keywords, share ideas, among others.

People will be using the social media sites for business knowledge management, for companies to interact with their customers on social media sites. I read comments about products from customers on companies’ websites blogs to decide on which product to buy. Companies gain the knowledge on how to satisfy their customers and develop a competitive advantage through the blogs. Radio Stations’ websites also have microblogs.

IT consultants use microblogs to reach their customer whilst customer support representatives use microblogs to escalate customer complaints within a business organization (Bergeron, 2003). Companies use microblogs to advertise their products.

Future

Knowledge management will become more pervasive in organizations in the coming years, especially as the need for knowledge capture heightens as employees leave the organization (Liebowitz, J. and Megbolugbe, I. 2003: 196). Social Media is even used outside work and slowly becoming one of the internal and external activities of organizations (Santti, 2008). (Santti, 2008) Employees are familiar to Social Media tools, instant messaging, wiki, blog, virtual world. Social Media is rapidly growing in the Internet, where utilization is becoming more social, interactive and collaborative (Santti, 2008).

(Santti, 2008) predicts that the platform independence, Internet content that is understandable by computer and three dimensional applications like virtual world SecondLife are the features of the Web 3.0(the future Internet): communication in Web 3.0 happens like in Web 2.0 but computers are involved.

Current

 

(Santti, 2008) states that social media present the possibilities to develop corporate actions if it is utilized in a structured way thus a company should define suitable actions that can be developed through Social Media. (Santti, 2008) emphasizes that, the users’ information, openness and content sharing of users forms the base of the current Web 2.0 (Social Media): a user on social media can be a producer and a customer at a time.

Social networking is not for teenagers only anymore. Social media marketing is an ever-growing marketing resource that organizations today are severely under-utilizing – Facebook touts 36 million users in the U.S. alone. With an extensive reach beyond traditional marketing methods, social media marketing through channels like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs can inexpensively propel you into the next generation of marketing and drive business like you never have before. 

(Santti, 2008) points out that users comment, modify, develop further any information posted on social media and discuss interactively with other users. Wikis, blogs, video pod castings, discussion forums, instant messaging, RSS and other Social Media tools have changed the way to act in the Internet. (Santti, 2008) Social Media applications are wikis, blogs, Internet forums, virtual workplaces, instant messaging and music and video sharing.

 

Conclusion

(Santti, 2008) concludes that, the manner in which users act in the Internet has changed due to Social Media tools, Wikis, blogs, video pod castings, discussion forums, instant messaging, RSS.

References

Bergeron, B. P. (2003) Essentials of Knowledge Management. John Wiley and Sons, Inc: Canada.

Liebowitz, J. and Megbolugbe, I. (2003) A set of frameworks to aid the project manager in conceptualizing and implementing knowledge management initiatives. International Journal of Project Management [Online], 21 (2), pp. 189-198. Available from: < http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman/a4.3d > [Accessed 1 October 2010].

Santti, P. (2008) Development corporate knowledge management through social media. Helsinki University of Technology Faculty of Electronics, Communications and Automation [Online], November. Available from: <ftp://ftp.computer.org/press/outgoing/proceedings/.../data/4239a118.pdf > [Accessed 1 October 2010].