Using social media in communication processes in commercial office properties

Intangible factors increasingly contribute to building a sustainable competitive advantage for the company. Turbulent environment of the organization and the rapid development of new technologies, affect the change of behaviour of customers and organizations, contributing to the evolution of the way the company communicates with customers. The growing awareness of customer service standards and their expectation, force a permanent process of adjusting the product offer to the individual needs of the purchaser, and a constant dialogue between the organization and the customer, make it important to gain knowledge and exchange information. The aim of the article is to analyse the possibility of using social media in communication with tenants in commercial office properties. Selected channels of communication with clients were discussed. The research uses the case study method. It is proposed to implement measures that could contribute to the wider use of social media in tenants’ communication with landlords.


Introduction
In analysing the changes taking place on the market, it can be concluded that enterprises exist thanks to the transfer of information and communication, and the nature of the enterprise and each organization is expressed precisely in the processes of transfer and communication with the environment (Chrąchol, 2013, p. 148 after Wiktor). It is assumed that in the act of communication a specific content (or information) is communicated, called "message", "message content" or "content communicated and received". The act of communication is the act of the transmission of specific content. Transmission can be understood as the relationship in which the subject(s) remain(s) the content being communicated. The relation of the subject to the content is usually described as "propositional attitude" (Muszyński, 2000, p. 147). The development of modern technologies has contributed to the transformation of communication between the organization and its customers. In this case study of commercial office real estate, the change concerns communication leading to the exchange of knowledge, building relationships between landlords and tenants as well as between the individual tenants themselves. Dynamically developing new technologies have contributed to the creation of a new space, next to the real one being a plane of communication, virtual space. The place of contact 'face to face' is taken up by communication 'interface to interface' (Wasylewicz, 2016, p. 134).

Office space as a communication platform
Communication, due to its area of reception area, can be divided into: mass, group and individual, as shown in Table 1.
The article focuses on individual communication, which in the Goban-Klas definition (2005, p. 14), means the basic process of human communication based on speech and language. Language and its use is a starting point for the interpersonal analysis of the communication process. Communication between stakeholders and an organization takes place in a specific physical or virtual space. Source: (Chrąchol, 2013, p. 14).
The notion of space has a strong connection with the activity of mankind and society in every condition of civilization. In the context of organizing a community, space was also one of the most important 'organizational' dimensions. All activities of an individual and organized communities take place in some space (Pachura, 2018, p. 56). Toffler (2006, p. 40) points out that 1955 was a historic turning point, when American office workers (i.e. 'white collar') for the first time achieved a numerical advantage over the blue-collar workers. Since then, more and more office space has been created. Postman (2004, p. 108) reminds us that the French word 'bureau' initially meant the covering of the table on which money was counted,  then the table itself, then the room where the table stood, and finally the office and staff of the entire accounting department. Office space, both in these first simple premises and in modern office buildings, can contribute to building relationships between tenants and landlords, and can support relationship management. It is an intangible factor, a unique value which contributes to building a competitive advantage of a given office building. It is a valuable resource because it results in in a more effective functioning of the company, and also unique as it is difficult to find two comparable relations -each one is different, it is difficult to copy them, to find a substitute -hence it is a rare feature correlated with other resources of the organization (e.g. employees, customers, communication channels), and the resource that cannot be transferred unchanged to another company.
According to the Polish Classification of Construction Objects, office buildings are non-residential. This class includes (PKWiU, 2008): • buildings used as a place of work for the activities of the office, the secretariat or other administrative premises, e.g. the buildings of banks, post offices, municipal, commune offices, ministries, etc.; • buildings used as conference and congress centres, law courts and seat of parliament.
The class excludes offices in buildings primarily intended for other purposes. On the one hand, space can be used as a communication tool, and it can be shaped in such a way that it constitutes a 'friendly environment', however the same space has repressive and control functions (Dudek, 2009, p. 162). A properly arranged space can be a tool to facilitate communication, improve cooperation, contribute to building new relations, affect the quality of existing ones or it can be, for example a tool to control an organization's employee. Communicating in real space, face to face, is not just exchanging information, sharing knowledge is also body language. In a traditional society, interpersonal communication consists of verbal, but also non--verbal communication, providing the context to facilitate the interpretation of the spoken statement. The so-called non-verbal communication comprises: facial expressions, proxemics ( information based on the spatial distance between partners), kinesics (analysis of postures, gestures, body movements) and para-language (voice characteristics,i.e. pitch, blunt speech, intensity, fluctuation or other disturbances of speech flow) see (Wasylewicz, 2016, pp. 135-136). In the case of office buildings, the communication platform, namely the space for building relations between the landlord and tenants and potential tenants, can be a leisure zone, a catering zone, as well as virtual space such as social media. Catering points in modern office buildings are meeting places for people of different cultures, specialties, where one can invite colleagues, business partners, and potential customers. According to a report conducted by Colliers International (Colliers International, 2019) entitled "Office buildings from the kitchen", among the trends in the catering offered in office buildings mentions the development of catering modules as places to meet, play, work, study and rest, creating a café for the tenants' own use, inaccessible to external customers, which serve as meeting and integration places for employees and their guests.

Selected channels of communication with the customersocial media
Among the modern ways in which organizations communicate with the customer on the Internet the following should be mentioned: e-mail, chat, blog, forum on company websites, Skype, and social networking sites. In cooperation with the client, the following are important: offering a wide range of available communication channels, ease of communication, the speed of the company's reaction, the effectiveness of the undertaken contacts and the company 'remembering' its clients-innovators (Jelonek, 2014, p. 327). It is necessary to develop an effective way of communication between the company and its environment, for example by using social media.
A wide range of definitions of social media can be found in the literature. In practice, a website or portal where mutual communication is understood, can be called a social media channel (Sadowski, 2013, p. 72). Szydłowska (2013, pp. 37-38) points out the characteristics of social media: • reach -wide audience, • accessibility -free and accessible to everyone, • usability -wide range of knowledge sources and ease of use, • immediacy -fast information flow, • durability -keeping information up to date. Krok (2011, pp. 50-51) divided social media by function: • allowing to express their opinions and views (e.g. blogs); • used to share resources (e.g. YouTube); • oriented towards building and maintaining interpersonal relations (e.g. Facebook); • interaction-oriented, in the form of discussion and debate (e.g. chat sites); • meeting the need for up-to-date information and referring to the news (e.g. livestream services); • co-creation-oriented (e.g. MMO games, where the main goal is the cooperation of participants). The dynamic development of social media requires organizations to constantly adapt to the changing environment and use modern tools to build relationships with customers, which entered the organization unnoticed and spread quickly. Nowadays it is not only a way for an organization to communicate with their stakeholders, to provide new forms of participation and cooperation, it is also a tool to organize and exert pressure. Social media redefine the points of contact between customers and organizations and take their relations to a completely different level (cf. Bachnik and Szumniak-Samolej, 2015, p. 9). They are a Web 2.0. tool which is a dynamic platform, where users primarily create online content, they can communicate with each other directly, in different directions and in real time, and above all they create online content (Bachnik and Szumniak-Samolej, 2015, p. 17). One of the most important features of the services and tools referred to as social media is their open form which enables the constant modification and extension of the content already introduced to the web by adding comments and new content (Kaznowski, 2008, p. 29).
Social media not only enable sharing knowledge, but are also a platform contributing to the creation of groups and communities, creating bonds and building relationships. Static websites, i.e. text or description illustrated by an image, are not enough. This is just a one-way communication between the organization and the customer, passing on information. There is a need for dynamic knowledge exchange, real time dialogue, moving images, interaction, the ability to influence the way the organization works, and co-creating a product. Most significant from the author's perspective, are media enabling communication between the customer and the organization such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube. It is also worth mentioning Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok. The selection criterion for the Table 2 was the number of active users per month and the target group, i.e. customers using the organization's services. The research conducted by Hootsuite presented another edition of an extremely extensive report on social media. It shows, among other things, that Internet users spend about 2 hours every day browsing social media and only one hour more, 3 h 18m, watching television (Report Hootsuite, January 2020). Figure 1 presents details of how Internet users engage with social media. Particular attention should be paid to the fact that 32% of Internet users use social media for work reasons.  Table 3 illustrates the purpose for which users browse social media sites. For 64.3% of the respondents, according to Bajdak and Janeczek (2020, p. 124), this is an opportunity to be up to date with the company's brand/product offer, and 42.7% look at social media sites to find interesting sales offers and promotions. It also seems important to draw attention to the premise which impact on increasing customers' involvement in cooperation with the organization. According to Jelonek (2014, p. 321), the following are very important motives for customers to start cooperation with the company: • personalization of the product offer (96%), • reduction of dissatisfaction with the product (88%), • use of other consumers' opinions and advice (76%), • willingness to receive a product or service that is better suited to individual needs and preferences (52%). However, when considering the activity of an organization in social media it is important to determine the purpose of its presence on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. It is important to specify the needs of the organization, think about why one should build a profile on social networking sites, and how to use it.
According to Miotk (2013, p. 66), there are two approaches to social media in Poland: • The first group of companies "only listens", and does not pursue an active image policy in social media. It monitors opinions about its brands and competitors but reacts to them only occasionally -in crisis situations; • The second group is "listening and acting". They have a communication strategy in the social media and are actively implementing it to make changes in products and services and in contact with potential employees. One of the most important promotional opportunities offered by Facebook (also referred to as FB) is the establishment of a personalized company profile around which a loyal group of recipients can be built. On the one hand, a profile on FB serves as an 'informer' -it allows to provide general information about the company (company's product offer, opening trade fairs, establishment of new branches, etc.), while on the other hand it provides entertainment for the recipients in the form of videos, photos or curiosities (Wicińska, 2017, p. 116) This enables interaction, and allows to share opinions with the organization and with other clients. It should be mentioned that for FB users, its additional feature, Messenger, used to send messages between users, is also becoming increasingly important (Gackowski, Brylska, and Patera et al., 2018, p. 26). The total number of users using this communicator in January 2018 was 1.3 billion.

Results of the research -case study
The survey was carried out in an office building in a district town in the province of Silesia, with the population of 200-250, between June and July 2020. The company has a website, e-mail address and Facebook profile. The manager is aware of the importance of social media in reaching customers and confirms being an active user of social media in his private life. Unfortunately, new entries rarely appear on the company's Facebook account. Communication with tenants in social media is handled by a person who has other responsibilities and this function is carried out in his spare time as an additional occupation. There are no clearly defined obligations concerning activity in social media. The tenants confirm their interest in their Facebook private account, but rarely look at the landlord's profile. At the declaration level, both tenants and landlords declare their willingness to communicate using social media. The landlords talk about posting up-to-date information about the office facility, consistently building relationships with the tenant, informing about plans, encouraging tenants to share their knowledge, listening to tenants, their comments, and evaluating the service received. Unfortunately, this is just in the realm of declarations and plans. The content of the profile is casual information about the facility's operating hours, wishes for special occasions, current and archive photos of the facility. They themselves confirm the fact of looking at Facebook profiles of brands, and organizations they are interested in. A gap can be observed between the behaviour in private life concerning landlords and tenants, and their professional life. Privately they use Facebook, YouTube, and less, Instagram. Both landlords and tenants have declared that they browse the websites of other office buildings and their Facebook profiles, mainly because of their interest in the activities undertaken by their competitors. When asked about the purpose of maintaining a Facebook profile, the landlord mentioned: building a positive image of the facility, acquiring new clients, presenting an offer, and posting current information about the facility. The tenants declared their willingness to share their opinions, thoughts and comments on the service provided. The comparison of both tenants' and landlord's declarations with the content posted on the company profile on Facebook shows a lack of consistency; there are few likes and dislikes under the posts, and the comments are rare.
When asked which target groups the landlord would like to contact the most, the office facility managers mentioned potential tenants, keeping in touch with existing customers, possible contact with new business partners, and the emergence of new business opportunities. The conversation with the office facility managers was also about the way the landlord measures the effectiveness of social media activities. The respondents indicated an increase in the number of users, the number of likes and dislikes, and comments under the posted content. They paid particular attention to positive and negative comments, to which they tried to respond quickly. They did not note the time spent by the user on the website or the number of returning users. The company does not have a strategy for developing its social media activities. It plans actions to increase the competence of its employees dealing with communication with tenants, and it does not intend to use external experts to improve and increase efficiency.

Conclusion
Customer relationship management is the whole activity of creating and maintaining lasting relations with customers, supported by information technology tools in order to build a loyal group of regular consumers (Beliczyński, 2006, p. 117). One of the elements of the effective building of relations with tenants is efficient communication between the organization and the customer. The increasing use of social media as a tool of the communication with customers in formulating communication strategy of an organization seems to be a necessity. There is a generational change: among customers, generation Y is beginning to dominate, i.e. people born after 1990 who find it much easier to establish relations using new technologies and Internet communicators than in direct contact (IAB przewodnik po social mediach w Polsce, 2019). Soon the predominant group of customers will be the Z-generation, born after 1995 (Barber, 2008, p. 338), referred to in various ways as "children of welfare", the "product of information civilization", "stimulus absorbers" and others (Antas--Juszczyk and Roguska, 2020, p. 7).
The way of perceiving oneself in the socio-cultural space translates into the attitudes and behavior of mankind, the ability to respond to specific stimuli, social phenomena and situations, as well as ways of understanding the surrounding reality, the world itself and oneself (Antas-Juszczyk and Roguska, 2020, p. 127). Social media are arousing more and more interest among entrepreneurs. Managers recognize their huge potential, but use them to a small extent. The author proposes the implementation of the following actions: • reaching for external experts, • creating multiple communication channels to enable customers to communicate with the company, • conducting activities encouraging the organization's stakeholders to co-create content, • consciously managing relations with external stakeholders using social media, • drawing attention to the benefits and risks of communicating with customers and potential customers, • initiating activities aimed at increasing the competence of employees in the effective use of social media. Looking at social media allows to better recognize their potential, the opportunities they bring, to use them more effectively in the business sphere, but also allows to see the threats in time, and reduce the uncertainty that accompanies their development.