THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE ON BUSINESS PERFORMANCE IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA
Introduction
Social media tools are gaining popularity and are increasingly used in regular operations of many companies, ranging from start-ups and small and medium enterprises to large corporations (Lee et al, 2008; Osimo, 2008; Andriole, 2010; Bell and Loane, 2010). Despite extensive use of social media, little is known on the specific impact that these tools and technologies have on business process performance (Denyer et al, 2011). The purpose of this paper is to go beyond the listings of benefits and drawbacks of social media technologies and to analyze to what extent their employment has a measurable impact on business process performance (Bughin, 2009, 2011).
The business impact may be due to the impact of social media on management (Birkenshaw and Crainer, 2010), on governance (De Hertog et al, 2011), on knowledge management (Schneckenberg, 2009), on strategic competitiveness (Liu and Liu, 2009). Emerging technologies gain popularity as tools to enable cooperation among businesses in business networks (Liu and Liu, 2009; Bell and Loane, 2010), whereas the applications market is flourishing (Dutta, 2012). Networked companies that take advantage of the latest social media technologies seem to outperform their competitors and report benefits like lower costs and improved efficiencies (Harris and Rea, 2009; Eisenfeld and Fluss, 2009).
In this context it is important to understand the specific impact that social media have on business process performance (Wetzstein et al, 2011). The identification of a direct connection between the two will support the shift towards Enterprise 2.0 – a new business environment in which companies will maximize the benefits they can obtain by integrating social media suites into their daily operations. The research question in this paper is ‘What is the impact of social media on business process performance?’ The present study aims to better understand the social media environment and the impact of common social media tools used in practice. To answer the research question, we analyze a case and assess how business managers and IT managers in a successful social media based company evaluate this impact.
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