Benefits and Consequences of Social Media for an Organization

Management

Table of Contents
PART 1-REPORT...........................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
BENEFITS AND CONSEQUENCES OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR AN ORGANIZATION..........1
EFFECTS OF EMPLOYEE’S BEHAVIOR ON BRAND IMAGE...............................................2
ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY.................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
PART 2- MEMO.............................................................................................................................3
PART 3- POWERPOINT PRESENTATION.................................................................................7
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

PART 1-REPORT
INTRODUCTION
Social media is a way to interact with individuals by using the appropriate medium such
as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. (Tuten and Solomon 2017). In this regard, the current report
is based on to identify the benefits and limitations of the use of social media in the workplace.
On the other hand, the impact of employee’s comments on the brand image has also been
analyzed that damage or build the brand reputation among clients and potential customers. At the
end, a communication template has been prepared to introduce the social media policy to staff.
BENEFITS AND CONSEQUENCES OF SOCIAL MEDIA
According to Jeske and Shultz (2016), social media is the way to communicate with
individuals, to share knowledge, exploit new forms of communication and enhance the
collaboration. Use of social media for marketing is helping to reduce the marketing cost because
the employees demonstrate the product features on social accounts. Nonetheless, employees not
share clear information regarding the company that tends to dissatisfaction among customers and
reduces the benefits of the organization. On the contrary, social media has a contribution to
increase customer engagement and resolve the queries instantly (Razmerita, Kirchner and Nabeth
2014, p8). Therefore, the use for social media is beneficial to engage and enhance the loyalty
among customers, reduce the marketing cost; however, incomplete information in conversation
develops dissatisfaction in the consumers.
Use of social media supports to maintain the brand image of the organization among
customers, competitors, clients etc. In this regard, employees state the positive comments on the
personal accounts and dictate merely company-specific information to grab the attention of
potential customers. On the contrary, Bornmann (2014) mentioned that employees use social
media to update the status and to create a friendly environment online. Additionally, employees
post negative comments over the social sites for the publicity; therefore, the reputation of the
company get damaged. Apart from this, employees interact with the target audience through
social media platform and enhance the viability of the organization. For example, as per the case
study, Sunshine 100 is using the latest technologies of social media such as Twitter, Facebook to
interact with customers, clients, staff members, suppliers etc. It helps to share specific
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information and creates regular connections among employees. Thus, it shows that social media
is supportive to protect the brand image but fewer consequences make a negative impact on the
customers and brand. Moreover, the social media platform supports to contact with target
audiences.
EFFECTS OF EMPLOYEE’S BEHAVIOR ON BRAND IMAGE
In the current business environment, social media is the strong key factor to lead the
company's products in the competitive market (Schlager et al. 2011). The employees comment
on the social sites to defend the brand image and demonstrate the quality, attributes of the
services. However, employees post negative comments on the social platform and ruin the
reputation of the firm. Moreover, staff members operate the personal social accounts within
working hours; therefore, the quality time gets affected as well as engagement with customers
reduces. For instance, in the case study, one of the individual employees of Sunshine 100 had
posted a negative comment over the Facebook regarding the products ‘Junk food is everywhere’.
This statement affects the brand image of the company in the market and reduces the
involvement of the customers towards the Sunshine 100. On the contrary, the workforce remains
committed towards the operating activities of the business and focuses on the effective
performance on social media (DiStaso, McCorkindale and Wright 2011). In this case, employees
remain in contact with customers by posting the company related comments to create
understanding and knowledge instead of spending time over the personal accounts. On the other
hand, the reputation of the firm gets affected by communicating the company’s abstract
information in everyday attitude, behavior, decisions etc. on the social sites. Here, the employees
play a role of the creative person to protect the brand image in the group of stakeholders.
Moreover, also focuses on the coverage of consequences of the company on the social media and
defend the brand image among clients. Hence, it reflects that behavior of employees on social
media affects the brand image in both terms such as positive and negative. Comment over the
social media in favor of the company protect the brand image otherwise negative posts reduces
the competitiveness in the market and affects the customer's behavior.
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