Importance of Social Media Policies in Workplaces

Running Head: BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
Topic- Importance of social media policies in workplaces
Case study analysis: Sunshine 100
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BUSINESS COMMUNICATION2
To: The Management, Sunshine 100
From: Jane Wilson, Director of Social Media
Date: 23rd March 2019
Subject: Recommendations to strengthen social media policy development in Sunshine 100
Dear all,
In response to the recent ‘KidsEats’ campaign incident reflecting on lack of social media policy
in our Organisation, I would like to mention and recommend some key workplace policies in
regard to social media usage. The major focus areas will include,
1. Importance of right tools and technologies for social media usage at workplaces and a
comparative study of social media tools and traditional communication tools.
2. Impacts of an employee’s social media comments and behavioural expression on ultimate
image and reputation of an organisation.
3. Various coverages of social media interaction under social media policy coverage and
4. Development of a communication strategy for effective social media policy
communication to all employees and staffs.
Comparative study of challenges posed by social media and traditional communication
Social media is surely one of the most innovative benefits of technological upgradation
but it possesses a number of risks too. Social media has increased both vulnerability and
insecurity of business information to a considerable extent (Bucher, Fieseler and Suphan 2013).
It has improved networking on one hand but on the other have lowered the ethical and moral
responsibility of the employees. Organizational productivity has decreased to a considerable
extent due to increased exposure to social media in workplaces (Cardon and Marshall 2015).
Smart technology implementation has increased superficiality of knowledge experiences and as a
result risk consequence have increased manifold. Social media has higher scope of uplifting as
well as ruining the image and reputation of an organization in no time (De Choudhury and

BUSINESS COMMUNICATION3
Counts 2013). Social media tools like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn are
both cost-efficient and quick but have higher risk of data discrepancy and data misuse (Leonardi,
Huysman and Steinfield 2013). On the other and traditional communication is also not free from
risk and challenges. The major challenge faced is to remain dynamic with the rapid pace of
globalization. Negative impact of word of mouth is far reaching as resulting grapevine can affect
the whole work culture to a great extent (Thomas and Akdere 2013). It has lack of community
support and interaction as a result a gap is created in product promotion and advertisement. Both
time and cost involvement are high. Also, at times, reaching the target audience is not possible in
the given time frame and the main objectives of the organization remains unachievable. Both
face to face verbal and non-verbal communication channel have same problems as mentioned
above.
Impacts of employee’s social media behaviour and comments on reputation of the organization
Now, after the ‘KidsEats’ incident, we all can well understand the impact of employee’s
social media comments and behavioral outcomes on company reputation and image. The whole
reputation of the company, its international expansion scope, future progress all have come under
scrutiny overnight. The depth of impact is well felt today as one single Facebook post by one of
our staffs have ruined the whole value of our campaign of promoting healthy food alternative.
And in this case the role of media cannot be neglected. With social media integration media have
also become stronger and one small misuse from our side will be the reason of our failure. In this
regard I would like to mention that the increased looseness of social media usage in workplace in
Sunshine 100 has been the major reason of this incident. May be the staff posted it casually and
his intension was right as he mentioned that ‘.... junk food everywhere’ where he wanted to
reflect on the ill-effects of the same. But his timing and positioning as not right and it resulted in
the dire consequences to be faced by the organization. Hope not but it will have far-reaching
impacts on our Baby food launch in China as well. In this regard, employees need to be made
aware of the impacts social media could cause to their own job reputations as well as on the
organizational reputation at large (Vaast and Kaganer 2013). Employees need to abide by a set of
rules and regulations in regard to social media usage and they need to know about their own
roles and responsibilities in maintaining the reputation of the organization they work with.