The increased access to the internet today has encouraged the growth and development of social networking as individuals and businesses do their best to maximize their potential. In the business world, social networking has been widely used to improve communication and interactions between employees and top managers (Balick, 1). The growth of social networking has however come with a fair share of its challenges which must be addressed first if the business is to fully benefit from this new development. Understanding the specific roles of each role player is crucially important in social networking.

A senior manager of a book store has an important role of ensuring equal and fair distribution of all available books and learning materials to enrolled students. The manager also has the role of coordinating students’ use of the books and the study materials as a way of ensuring optimum use. To effectively carry out these tasks, the manager needs to closely interact with the students and also ensure that the students themselves have close relations. Replacing the traditional class interactions with the social networking interactions will greatly help in this case. During and after the implementation of social networking the manager will coordinate activities to ensure that every student gets a chance to contribute. The manager will also help in resolving any conflicts that may arise.

The book store’s department has an important role of creating a social networking platform that allows enrolled students access to available materials. The platform will be designed in a way that encourages students to interact with each other as they make contributions and respond to comments. Here, the management may decide to create a Facebook page or Twitter handle where all enrolled students will be invited and encouraged to share what they have. All issues or conflicts that may arise will be addressed by the department.

Social networking will make the book distribution an easy process as students will no longer need to visit the book store to gain access. Also social networking will promote increased communication among students thus encouraging knowledge sharing. Using Facebook and Twitter as the selected social networking applications will ease the distribution process as all the students will need to do to start sharing is to login to their accounts (Mintz, 1). With these tools, all students will be able to share a learning material simultaneously from the comfort of their homes.

Using Facebook and Twitter will also enable the students to interact and discuss on various topics without having to meet physically. This will save the students a lot of time and encourage them to learn more from each other. The main issue with the use of Facebook and Twitter however is that the manager control over students’ conversations will be dramatically reduced. This is because all the manager can do is to follow their conversations and if he/she cannot identify them soon enough conflicts may arise. A student account may also get hacked leading to leakages of personal information (Mintz, 2).

The department can also use WhatsApp and Instragram applications. These applications have gained great popularity today because they allow users to send and receive instant messages (Balick, 2). By creating a group chat for the students, distributing materials will be become a relatively easy process. Using these two applications will also provide more control to the manager as he can temporarily add or remove a student. However students may tend to be “mean” with their books as students may choose what to share or not to. This is different from a website where the manager can insert a downloadable learning material.

The benefits of social networking far much outweigh the risks. The group should therefore proceed with the proposed social networking initiative. With this initiative, the students will enjoy more access and flexibility. The management should put in additional measures to deal with the issue of security.