MNG81001 Case Study: Developing a Social Media Policy for Sunshine

This case study analyzes Sunshine 100's social media policy, exploring the advantages and disadvantages of social media use within the company. It examines how employee comments and behavior can impact the organization's brand image, highlighting the importance of a well-defined social media policy. The memo discusses the potential for increased collaboration, real-time communication, and customer feedback, while also addressing risks such as information leakage, distractions, and negative comments. It recommends a communication strategy that considers timing, audience, sender, key messages, desired outcomes, medium, materials, and frequency to ensure efficient implementation and governance of social media communication within the organization.

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Memo
To: Paul Morgan, CEO, Sunshine 100.
From: The Director, Social Media, Sunshine 100.
Date: 15 January 2019
Subject: Sunshine 100’s social media policy
The technology has evolved a plenty of functions and processes of the company that affects on
the revenues in a positive manner. Communication is the major process of the company that can
be influenced through social media and internet. Social media has potential to change the way of
communication. The main aim of memo is to evaluate the series of social media events that can
have unconstructive result for the company. The benefits, drawbacks of the use of social media
will be demonstrated for the purpose of facilitating the growth of social media policy in the
company.
Advantages and Disadvantages
There are an ample of advantages and disadvantages of the social media within the company
which can impact the communication strategy. There is a major advantage of social media is
getting update regarding competitors’ strategy by which they can perform in well effective
manner (Robertson & Kee, 2017). The collaboration can be increased among employees due to
an effective policy of social media through which the company can arrange meetings at right
time and spreading the information in real time. The queries of the employees as well as
customers can be solved within timeframe by taking consideration of the social media within the
business. The company can perform in well efficient manner with the help of social media as the

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employees of the company can bring new ideas after evaluating the feedback of the customers
(Mosca & Civera, 2017). The internal and external strategies of the company can be changed
through the usage of the social media. The use of social media is not only helping in bringing
change within the company but also it keeps updated to external shareholders (Holland, Cooper
& Hecker, 2016). Along with that the use of social media helps people to develop interpersonal
relationship from which employee can get psychological assistance.
On the other hand, there are number of disadvantages of the social media that can hamper the
productivity of the employees while performing within the company. However, the use of social
media can store a lot of sensitive information but there is a huge chance of leakage of such
information to the huge group (Namkoong, Nah, Van Stee & Record, 2018). Hence, the
information attained at the workplace can enhance the risk of spread to the competitors from
which the company can lead into negative position. Moreover, there is a barrier of time and
language in the use of social media at workplace. The social media use in the company can bring
negative impact over the performance of the employee as they can distract from their ongoing
condition.
Social media use and organisations brand image
Moreover, it can be stated that the use of social media can put positive impacts over the brand
image of the company. The social media put positive impact on the marketing, advertising and
communication strategy which make sense of good brand image of the company (Bolton, et. al.,
2013). Along with that it has been noted that competitors or jealous people can comment
negatively on the profile of the company on social media which can put negative impact over the
brand image of the company.

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Contents of Social Media Policy
There should be proper focus on the legal rules for the purpose of formulating an effective
communication strategy by managers in the context of using information technology. Moreover,
the policy must entail the extent of the use and allow top authority or designated profile to carry
out communication on behalf of company. It is vital for the company to keep away from the
conflict of interest and loss of noteworthy information in wrong hands (Van Zoonen, Verhoeven
& Vliegenthart, 2017).
Communication Strategy
1. Timing- Real time information
2. Audience- Top Authority and employees of the organization
3. Sender- Communication Manager
4. Key Message- Impact of social media communication on the performance of the
employees
5. Desired Outcome- Formulating the strategy of the social media communication policy for
entire organization
6. Medium- E-mails, Memo
7. Materials- Code of conduct of article, rules and regulations of the government
8. Frequency- Every month
It can be concluded from above discussion that the use of social media in the company can bring
positive attributes which become a noteworthy component of the communication channels of the
company. Therefore, it is suggested by the management to keep consideration of both aspect of

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the social media communication along with the necessary governance standards for efficient
implementation.

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References
Bolton, R N Parasuraman, A Hoefnagels, A., Migchels, N Kabadayi, S Gruber, T Komarova
Loureiro, Y. & Solnet, D., 2013, “Understanding Generation Y and their use of social media: a
review and research agenda” Journal of service management, 24(3), pp.245-267.
Holland, P Cooper, B &Hecker, R 2016, ‘Use of social media at work: A new form of employee
voice?’ The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 27, no. 21, pp. 2621-
2634.
Mosca, F & Civera, C 2017, “Digital channels and social media management in luxury markets”
(Vol. 1, pp. 1-200). London: Routledge.
Namkoong, K Nah, S Van Stee, S K & Record, R A 2018, “Social Media Campaign Effects:
Moderating Role of Social Capital in an Anti-Smoking Campaign” Health
communication, 33(3), pp.274-283.
Robertson, BW & Kee, KF 2017, ‘Social media at work: The roles of job satisfaction,
employment status, and Facebook use with co-workers,’ Computers in Human Behavior, Vol.
70, pp. 191-196.
Van Zoonen W, Verhoeven, JWM &Vliegenthart, R 2017,‘Understanding the consequences of
public social media use for work. European Management Journal,’ Vol. 35, no 5, pp. 595-605.

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