Importance of Social Media Policy Development for Organizations

This article discusses the importance of social media policy development for organizations. It covers the advantages and disadvantages of using social media, the impact of employee behavior on brand reputation, social media guidelines, and a communication plan for Sunshine 100.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Memo
Sunshine 100
Date: January 11, 2019
To: Management of sunshine 100
From: Jane Wilson
Subject: Importance of social media policy development
Introduction
Development of a social media policy is highly important due to the following aspects.
Potential advantages and disadvantages for an organization when using social media
The advantages of using social media are:
 Cost effectiveness: using social media for advertisement purpose can reduce the
traditional marketing cost. The cost of maintaining a social media is much cheaper than
opting for conventional marketing (Borgatti, Everett and Johnson 2018).
 Brand awareness and brand reputation: it is beneficial for reaching out to a wider and
international audience in a much convenience method and thus, helps in increasing brand
awareness and brand reputation.
 Website traffic: It helps in increasing the traffic to the company website, which helps in
increasing awareness as well as popularity of the brand.

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 Greater access to international market: Social media helps to reach out to an
international audience in a much convenient manner (Turban et al. 2017).
 Easier market research: Social media helps in conducting extensive market research.
The consumer feedback is easier to track and public announcements are easy to make.
Disadvantages of social media are:
 Security: sometimes the social media platforms have led to data breaching, hacking and
privacy issues, which can be a threat for the companies (Borgatti, Everett and Johnson
2018).
 Legal violations: privacy violations, discriminations are common issues when social
media is used in the workplace.
 Potential productivity loss: in many cases, the employees spend a substantial amount of
time on the social media for personal reasons and that hampers their as well as
organizational productivity loss (Turban et al. 2017).
 Difficulty in the evaluation of feedback: many times, the feedback on social media does
not reflect the sales on store, and then the social media marketing becomes ineffective.
 Additional resources: many times the organization needs to employ additional resources
to handle their social media account. It needs regular monitoring. These additional
manpower incur more cost.
Impact of employee behavior or comments on the brand reputation on social media
As the social media account of any organization is open to public, hence, a broad
audience can follow the company profile and can stay updated about the company activities on a
regular basis. Thus, company reputation is affected by the social media activity. Since, it is an

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open platform, not only the customers and followers, but the employees of the company, can also
be active about the organization and its reputation. Thus, the employees need to behave
responsibly while handling the social media account of their company. As stated by Horn et al.
(2015), social media is one of the largest influencers in the modern world. This media is most
effective in reaching out to a larger younger generation across the countries, and thus, the
customer reviews help in shaping the company performance. There are different variables that
solidify the online reputation of a brand or company. Thus, the online reputation not only
depends on what the company is putting up, but also what the customers are thinking about the
company performance. Therefore, the employees of the companies must behave responsibly. If
they behave inappropriately or comment anything negative about the company, the customers
can pick those up easily and that can affect the company reputation. This may also affect the
brand loyalty of the customers. Hence, as customers’ reviews can make or break a company
reputation, similarly, employee behavior on the social media can also affect the company
reputation as intended as well as unintended audience can have access to those activities (Kim,
Lim and Brymer 2015).
Social media guidelines
Sunshine 100’s social media guidelines include the policies on keeping positive attitude
towards the job, maintaining courtesy on the social media, responsible behavior while posting
anything, respecting the copyrights and avoiding the revelation of the personal information.
These are some very common policy guidelines regarding the usage of social media in the
organizations. However, in the age of rising concerns regarding the social media interactions, a
company should include the following points:

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 Employees should stay away from commenting on any controversial issue. They must
know about responsible behavior in the social media. The company should clearly
mention that strict actions would be taken if any employee is found taking part in any
negative discussion about the company (Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch 2017).
 The company should make policies for the employees to be respectful about others. Thus,
the employees should be warned against engaging in any type of sensitive issues, like,
politics and religion, and posting confidential information regarding the company and its
operations, and internal strategies of the company.
 Potential legal risks should be included in the policy guidelines. The employees should be
clearly communicated about the legal consequences of any inappropriate behavior on the
social media. These should include privacy and disclosure procedure, and guidelines
regarding security risks (Killian and McManus 2015).

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Communication plan
1. Timing February 1, 2019
2. Audience All the employees, including the CEO, Board of Directors,
managers and supervisors of Sunshine 100
3. Sender Director of Social Media
4. Key message To make all the employees aware about the revised social media
communication policy
5. Desired outcome Improved and responsible behavior on part of the employees
6. Medium Email, newsletters
7. Materials Softcopy and hardcopy
8. Frequency 1st of every month

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Social media policy guidelines

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References
Borgatti, S.P., Everett, M.G. and Johnson, J.C., 2018. Analyzing social networks. Sage.
Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P.A. and Hinsch, C., 2017. Elements of strategic social media marketing:
A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.118-126.
Horn, I.S., Taros, T., Dirkes, S., Hüer, L., Rose, M., Tietmeyer, R. and Constantinides, E., 2015.
Business reputation and social media: A primer on threats and responses. Journal of direct, data
and digital marketing practice, 16(3), pp.193-208.
Killian, G. and McManus, K., 2015. A marketing communications approach for the digital era:
Managerial guidelines for social media integration. Business Horizons, 58(5), pp.539-549.
Kim, W.G., Lim, H. and Brymer, R.A., 2015. The effectiveness of managing social media on
hotel performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 44, pp.165-171.
Turban, E., Outland, J., King, D., Lee, J.K., Liang, T.P. and Turban, D.C., 2017. Electronic
commerce 2018: a managerial and social networks perspective. Springer.