Challenges of Social Media in Management Communication

This essay discusses the challenges of social media in management communication and compares them with traditional channels. It also explores the impact of employee's social media behavior on an organization's identity and the importance of a social media policy.

Running head: Management Communication
Running head: Management Communication
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note
i.

Running head: Management Communication
Communication refers to the process of expression ones opinion, however
with the rise of the digital media, there is twofold process that is going on (Cammaerts
and Couldry 2016). One the one hand there is plentiful freedom given to the mass and
again due to the chance of miscommunication or fake news, the surveillance society is
on rise. This essay will be dealing with the how much and what extent should the
employee’s activities be monitored.
The introduction of social media tools across an organisation can pose significant challenges.
Managing these challenges goes beyond installing the right tools and technologies. Compare and
contrast the challenges posed by social media tools with the challenges posed by the traditional
channels of communication.
With the onset of digitalization social media and our day-to-day
communication is no longer the same. This is because with the rise of digital
platforms, the scope of media cannot only target the local audience bit also the
international one. Moreover, digitalization has accelerated the rise of open journalism,
where every person has got the free access to state their opinion (Coddington 2015).
This is the biggest challenge of the current social media, because people has the full
freedom to express their views and thus they can make any piece of information as
viral. Sometime the media current spreads fake news like the case of “Kids Eat”.
When comparing it with traditional media, social media has a transient nature because
there is no formal records of it. Whereas in the traditional media, the hardcopies are
kept by the customer and thus material can used for future references. However,
traditional media do not allow the customer to interact with the producers, rather it is
an unidirectional, however it is monitored and news are not published in a random
manner. Thus, it is more reliable than the news in the social media. For a business
enterprise to communicate effectively with the audience, fusion of both the traditional
and digital forms of communication is desired.

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ii. What impact might an individual employee’s comments or behaviour on social media have on
an organisation’s identity, image or reputation in the sense that it might be seen by broader and
unintended audiences?
Digital platforms are quite challenging for the older generation of the
population. The ways and means of the digital social media can be difficult to
understand because it has layers of option. When an employee working in the
organization posts the image or in the social media, he or she must be held responsible
for organization’s identity. This is because when that person is creating online image
of themselves it is very different from their offline image (Stoneman 2015). In the
offline or the real world, the organization may be part of the person’ identity but in
online world or the virtual world, whatever ever the person does become their
identity. Thus I think, even though the audiences are intended consequence of digital
media, any remark from the employee will have adequate consequences against the
identity of the organisation. The company can loose the amount of good will that it
has earned in the whole lifetime and it may impact the business in a catastrophic way.
iii. What social media interaction should a company’s social media policy cover?
It is very important for the companies to formulate a social media policy,
where the employees must be debarred from posting any picture or video clip of the
company’s activities. If one can use social media in an effective way, it can be very
beneficial for both the viewers and the owner but unmonitored or unevaluated
message or pictures can cause doom to the reputation of the company (Ward 2015).
This is because, any form of publicity whether good or bad can affect the sales and
the popularity of the brand that the company is planning to promote. Therefore,
company should formulate the social media policy so that it does not infringe upon
the privacy and the privileges of the employees, on the one hand, and also be able to
promote harmonious network within the organization. Any content that is being

Running head: Management Communication
shared or uploaded by the employees must be ratified in case the content might result
in leak of vital information. They must also be sure about the material is plagiarism
free. The employees must be allowed to share their piece of information, but any
information related to where they work must be channelized properly before meeting
the public eye.
iv. Using the communication plan template, devise a communication strategy for the Director of
Social Media to communicate the social media policy to staff.
Audiences Interests Message
Employees Be careful when sharing the
picture or any video clip
related to the company
Maintenance of the
confidentiality of the
organization.
Stakeholder Workshop should be organized
where the pros and cons of the
digital media is strictly
analysed.
Maintenance of the harmonious
network within that across the
business environment.
Created by Author
It is very important for the mangers to effectively implement the policy
regarding the use of social media. Before implementing, it on the customer or the
stakeholder it is important to analyses the role of this policy in near future or the long-
term future. Along with the future analysis, the internal and the external outcome will
also be given its due priority. Both the PASTEL and SWOT analysis can be very

Running head: Management Communication
useful in forming a communication plan template. It is very important to have a
written strategy plan so that it can be referred for future use (Rodriguez 2015). A
written plan has many advantages that will help to form the consensus within the
group, thus it will bring a sense of ownership to the employees, which will be rooted,
in the realistic timeline. Apart from understanding the behaviours of the employees, it
is also important to have a knowledge of the traditional and the digital modes of
communication. Thus, it is important to plan the channel accordingly, when the
employees exercise their mode of free expression, they must be restrained from do it
unless and until it affects the reputation of the company in a negative way. Thus along
with the management the employees must also realise the propensity to identify the
risk. This is because it will help to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the
company. By knowing, the weakness one can invent ways to deal with it, in a way
one can effectively work for the better performance in the future.

Running head: Management Communication
References
Cammaerts, B. and Couldry, N., 2016. Digital journalism as practice. The SAGE handbook of
digital journalism, pp.326-340.
Coddington, M., 2015. Clarifying journalism’s quantitative turn: A typology for evaluating
data journalism, computational journalism, and computer-assisted reporting. Digital
journalism, 3(3), pp.331-348.
Rodriguez, V., 2015. Social media vs. traditional media–Make the transition to digital
marketing.
Stoneman, J., 2015. Does open data need journalism?.
Ward, S.J., 2015. The invention of journalism ethics: The path to objectivity and beyond (Vol.
38). McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP.