The Role of Social Media Communication Within Professions

This essay aims to study and learn about how the communication technologies in the 21st century have evolved to become more capable of amending the process of communication in the organizations. According to Argenti, communication is quite a broad term and has many kinds. However, it varies from profession to profession that determines which communication practices must be instilled to interact meaningfully and fulfill the organizational needs. In the current essay, therefore, the profession or the domain of organizations in the field of interior decoration have been taken into consideration for examining how the communication practices in this discipline have evolved.

Impact of New Communication Technologies on Interior Decoration

Profession in the next 10 years As per the discretion of Geisinger, communication technology in the 21st century has evolved drastically. Since the advancements in technology have taken place, communication between and within professions has also been improved. About the context of the field of interior decoration, in particular, eminent transformations have been noticed in the way communication practices take place. Earlier, the domain of interior decoration extensively depended on physical meetings between the client and the company for the decorators and designers to understand and become well acquainted with the needs and wants of the clients. These one-on-one meeting had to occur quite frequently so the client would be assured that the decoration is done as per their specifications and customizations. However, contrastingly, Van Laaret al strongly argued that with the inclusion of technology, the traditional communication practices have evolved noticeably and as of now, the communication practices have transformed and are upgraded to the few ways.

Communication Through Posters

In the views of Hsieh & Ku, communication done through posters in interior decoration is although somehow traditional, but the benefits and worthiness it brings make it one of the most desirable ways of communicating with the clients. It had been mentioned by Hakansson that poster is a unique way to combine verbal and non- verbal matter which is meant to be relayed to the viewers/ persons concerned/ clients. It allows an interior decorator to merge picture(s) and textual context all at one place. Apart from this, Pedwell, Hardy & Rowland argued that it is even better if the presenter or the interior decorator verbally explain the picture and written content of the poster to make the communication more understandable. This practice of communication is deemed to be effective because it leaves least chances of ambiguity behind and ensure that everyone; including the client and the interior decorator should be on the same page. It means that both must agree with the progress of the interior decoration project and even if not, then also they are ought to realize the need of improvement similarly. Despite this usefulness, the drawback of posters is that these are very time consuming.

Social Media Communication

Social media, as Meikle debated, is one of the most advanced and most interactive ways of two-way communication. One of its biggest advantages is that the communication performed through social media is instant; followed by the fact that it allows and enables the interior decorators and the client(s) to recognize and understand the requirements in a better way. This is because social media networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube facilitates the client in recording, snapping, or even sharing the already existing samples of interior decorations to the designers which enable them to comprehend the requirements and expectations of the clients better. Lipschultz argued that social media communication in the 21st century allows the clients and interior decorators to connect with each other not only through non-verbal ways; that is, via exchanging pictures and texts; instead, it also allows them to engage in a face-to-face communication through online video calling. All these ways and evolved means of communication ensures better and even precise results which eventually guarantees higher satisfaction on both ends. It must also be noted that the social media platform of communication also assists the clients to ask for suggestions online for interior decoration from others.

Digital Media Communication

Digital media communication must not be confused with social media communication in particular. This is because the communication in this domain includes interacting via emails, website chats, interactive blogs, so on and so forth. From the standpoint of interior decoration in specific, communication though digital media channels have evolved in a way that it allows the interior decorators to send catalogs of their work to the clients and even receive samples from them which the clients might want to share for customization purposes. One of the most basic differences between social media and digital media is that the digital media communication is usually more formal and does not necessarily guarantee that the client and the interior decorator would be online at the same time. However, in contrast to this, social media communication usually takes place when both parties are active at the same time. With regard to preference, digital media is witnessed to be more prominent where interior decoration of bigger projects are involved; whereas, in negation to this, social media communication usually takes place at times when more or individual or small scale projects are involved.

Conclusion

The essay concludes with the confirmation that communication practices in the interior decoration field evolved in a drastic way such that the preference of clients and interior decorators shifted from non- digitalized ways such as posters to digital ones which included social media and the use of digital media channels. Furthermore, the essay further revealed that due to its characteristic of being instant, the digital ways especially social media channels became more preferable, followed by digital media such as emails and chats on websites, and then posters. All in all, the evolution in communication practices has sufficed the field of interior decoration and will continue to do so in the next 10 years.