Analysis of Social Media Policy and its Impact on Sunshine 100

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Sunshine 100's social media policy, examining the impact of social media on the company's brand image. It delves into the advantages and disadvantages of using social media for business marketing, including its role in increasing business visibility and employee engagement. The report also discusses the potential risks, such as the leakage of confidential information and the impact of employee behavior on the company's brand. Furthermore, it outlines the content of a social media policy and suggests a communication strategy, considering legal rules and mandatory government standards. The analysis references several academic sources to support the findings and recommendations, aiming to provide a clear understanding of how social media impacts business communication and brand reputation.

Memo
To: Paul Morgan, Sunshine 100, CEO.
From: The Director, Social Media, Sunshine 100.
Date: 15 January 2019
Subject: social media policy of Sunshine 100`s
With the increasing business competition at global level, companies have transformed their
communication channels with the use of technology. Organisations have changed their
processes and functions through technology. One of the most important function of
technology that enabled communication is the social media. This memo aims to analyse a
sequence of social media events, which had negative outcome in the company. The pros and
cons of social media will help the organisation to develop the social media policy (Baruach,
2012).
Advantages and disadvantages
The use of social media have become indispensable for the organisations because they help
the company for business marketing. Social media provides a platform to aware the
customers about the brand and boost the sales. Moreover, business can take advantage of
low-cost advertisements to connect customers. Advertisements are featured with special
offers and content on social media for increasing the number of audience. Due to maximum
frequent visiting on a particular page and website, Social media sorts or filters the pictures
and videos as per the preferences of the viewer. Social media enables the company to reach
all the age groups and demographics (Holland, Cooper, & Hecker, 2016). One of the most
important advantage of using social media is that it increases business visibility. Strategies

related to promoting the business and its products, which will lead to creation of greater
brand recognition. Moreover, it helps employee engagement that further helps in bringing
innovation and professionalism in human resource activities. Social media also helps in
communicating business goals and solve queries above the distance factor and maintaining
the motivation level by rewarding on social media (Leftheriotis, & Giannakos, 2014, 140). At
last, social media helps in implementing the internal and external strategies of business.
Social media also maintains the overall psychological assistance to employees that allow
them to interact with people in least time and take breaks from the work. On the other side,
using social media for promoting business and product may lack emotional connectivity,
decreases one-on-one interaction, spoils the understanding of thoughts, conveys irrelevant
information, and unnecessarily promotes laziness. The main disadvantage is that it hampers
the employee`s productivity, if the working hours are more (more than 8 hours). Another
disadvantage can be high risk of leakage of personal or confidential information to greater
audience. The leaked information gained inside the company can easily reach to the
competitors (Zoonen Verhoeven, & Vliegenthart, 2017, 600). Apart from this, there are also
some barriers related to time and language due to increasing use of social media at the
workplace. At last, it is important to consider that internet and information technology
involves a greater amount of risk especially related to risk of security hampered from privacy
intrusions, violation of digital statutes and loss of data.
Impact of employee`s behaviour on the company`s brand
Above all the things, While creating a template or advertisement, an employee`s thought
process plays an important role in creating the brand image. The use of Social media tools is
indispensable especially when yielding the impact on company`s brand image. This positive
image affects the advertising, refining and marketing the communication by creating groups,
source of information, promoting the products and especially considering that, how people

perceive the content written in the promotional tools by looking at the brand image.
Employee`s behaviour can affect the brand image of the company. Moreover, it is important
to consider that content posted by company`s staff can deeply affect the organisation in
negative terms too (Robertson, & Kee, 2017, 195).
Content of social media policy
While creating and formulating the efficient and effective communication strategy, a manager
should understand that it is important to consider the legal rules in regards to use of
information technology. Whereas, in addition, the policies must regulate the extent to which
use of authoritative is designed to execute the communication on the behalf of the
organisation. This will help to avoid the conflict of interest and loss of significance with a
wrong person (Robertson, & Kee, 2017, 195).
Communication strategy
Finding the audience- senior management and other members of the company
Timing- immediate basis
Sender and communication manager
Key message- Feasibility of communication through social media and it`s impact in the
organisation.
Memo, e-mail and emails how frequency communication happens.
As per the above discussion conducted in the few previous parts, it can be seen that social
media plays an important role in while operating communication channels. Company`s
management is suggested to go through each characteristic of social media communication
and incorporate the mandatory government standards for effective application and
implementation.

References
Baruach, T D 2012, ‘Effectiveness of social media as a tool of communication and its
potential for technology enabled connections’, International Journal of Scientific and
Research Publication. vol. 2, no. 5.
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.
Leftheriotis, I & Giannakos, M N 2014, ‘Using social media for work: Losing your time or
improving your work?,’ Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 31, pp. 134-142,
https://users.ionio.gr/~mgiannak/CHB2013.pdf
Mainiero, L & Jones, A 2013, ‘Workplace Romance 2.0: Developing a Communication
Ethics Model to Address Potential Sexual Harassment from Inappropriate Social Media
Contacts Between Coworkers’ Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 367-379.
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.