MNG81001: Social Media Policies in the Workplace Report

This report analyzes the crucial role of social media policies in the modern workplace, using a case study of Sunshine 100. It addresses the growing influence of social media on organizations, highlighting its benefits such as enhanced productivity and communication, while also acknowledging the challenges like misuse and reputational risks. The report emphasizes the importance of clear social media policies to guide employee behavior, protect the company's image, and ensure legal compliance. It provides a communication plan template to introduce new policies effectively, including considerations for timing, audience, key messages, and desired outcomes. The report underscores the need for employees to use social media responsibly and ethically, balancing their online presence with their professional duties, and it concludes by referencing relevant literature on the topic.

Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES IN THE WORKPLACE
SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES IN THE WORKPLACE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES IN THE WORKPLACE
To: Paul Morgan
CC: Alice Jones
From: Jane Wilson
Subject: Social media policies in the workplace
Respected Sir,
Social media is a growing phenomenon in the workplace. In recent times social media
has helped in shaping up the world. The demand and influence of social media has helped
organizations to understand its importance and has lead to the use of social media in the
workplace for employee productivity and development of the organization. It is widely being
used by organizations to help the organizations in many ways like enhancing the productivity
of the organization, building strong relationships between coworkers and enhances
information delivery and discovery (Cao et al. 2016).
Challenges of social media tool
The use of social media has been beneficial for most organizations in order to connect
with their target audience and receive feedback that has helped organizations to make
sustainable changes that has helped the organizations to succeed in the market. However
social media has always not been a blessing to an organization. The company Sunshine 100
has faced backlash because of misuse of social media. It is difficult to manage the challenges
that comes because of the misuse of social media is because it has reached the consumers
directly and nothing can be done rather than being apologetic to the consumers or be
transparent (Jamali et al. 2019). It is difficult to overcome from the damaged caused by social
media. Use of social media has come up with new challenges that organizations have to deal
with and it becomes more difficult to handle the challenges when compared to traditional
communication challenges. Social media is an open platform where all the people are present

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and can view the activities of an organization. Information on social media travels very fast
and becomes difficult to take down as millions of people share and download piece of
information (Balaji, Khong & Chong 2016). In traditional communication a crisis is
manageable as it is within the organization and it can be resolved within the organization
without people getting to know about it (Eisingerich 2015).
Impact of employees behavior on social media on organizations
Employees of an organization should be aware of their activities on social media. An
employee represents an organization and it is the duty of an employee to post responsibly for
their and the development of the organization (Briscoe & Gupta 2016). Any derogatory
remarks or activity by any employee of an organization on social media makes people think
that the organization promotes and advocates those thoughts that can harm the reputation of
the company. People do not want to associate themselves with a company that has a negative
reputation. The company Sunshine 100 was launching their food products for kids and the
post of the employee about junk food that the company was launching for kids became a
negative factor for the company. This has not only impacted the customers but has also had a
huge impact on the unintended audiences who may have thought of giving the product to
someone they know or close to them. People would not like to give someone anything that
has a bad reputation in the market (Taylor et al. 2016) This shows the impact of a negative
reputation of a company that affects the sales and the business.
Social media policies Sunshine 100 should cover
It is important for every organization to have a social media policy in order to ensure
there are no misuses of the social media that can affect and negatively harm the organization.
Social media influences many people and too some extent influences the buyer behavior
(Schivinski & Dabrowski 2016). An effective social media policy will help organizations to

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control any mishaps that can occur. The social media policy should consist of the legal
policies that the government has proposed to ensure security (Faklaris & Hook 2017). It is
important for the employees to ethically communicate business policies through social media
that will benefit the organization. Authentic information must be provided through social
media and if any information that misleads customers is shared then the employee who has
done it will be penalized. Social media should be used for the advantage of an organization
and to communicate with the target audience to receive feedback that can help in the
development of the organization (Smith & Gallicano 2015). The employees need to share
content responsibly by writing properly so that no problem arises that can harm the
organization. The employees should ensure that the content that is going to be shared does
not hurt the sentiments of any clients or customers who use the organization’s products or
services. The employees must find a balance between social media and their work.
Employees will be penalized if any private information is shared that may violate the rules of
the companies.
Communication plan template
To introduce the staffs to a new social media policy there are some communications
strategies that needs to be implemented.
Timing End of the week when there will be less work
pressure. Preferably in the morning after all the
employees have entered the place.
Audience All the staff and employees of the company
Sunshine 100.

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Sender Jane Wilson, Director of Social media for
Sunshine 100
Key message Social media policies
“The introduction of new social media policies
that need to be followed by the employees that
will help the company benefit and pave way for
the success rather than bringing the company in a
risky situation that may have negative impact on
the company”
Desired Outcome The employees will understand the importance of
the policies and will function accordingly for the
positive results of the company
Medium Conference with a presentation introducing and
explaining the policies to the employees.
Materials Policy documents and emails.
Frequency Send emails of revised guidelines every 3
months.
Social media is vividly being used in the workforce these days and the benefits of the
medium cannot be denied. Social media has paved way for a two way communication

5SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES IN THE WORKPLACE
process of the organizations and their customers. It has been beneficial for the organizations
to put across their messages to their customers and to market to them directly. However, the
misuse of social media has been a curse to many organizations that has been difficult for the
organizations to overcome and recover from the loss.

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Reference
Balaji, M.S., Khong, K.W. & Chong, A.Y.L., 2016. Determinants of negative word-of-mouth
communication using social networking sites. Information & Management, 53(4), pp.528-
540.
Briscoe, F. & Gupta, A., 2016. Social activism in and around organizations. The Academy of
Management Annals, 10(1), pp.671-727.
Cao, X., Guo, X., Vogel, D. & Zhang, X., 2016. Exploring the influence of social media on
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Eisingerich, A.B., Chun, H.H., Liu, Y., Jia, H.M. & Bell, S.J., 2015. Why recommend a
brand face‐to‐face but not on Facebook? How word‐of‐mouth on online social sites differs
from traditional word‐of‐mouth. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(1), pp.120-128.
Faklaris, C. & Hook, S.A., 2017, February. Attitudes About'Fair Use'and Content Sharing in
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Schivinski, B. & Dabrowski, D., 2016. The effect of social media communication on
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Smith, B.G. & Gallicano, T.D., 2015. Terms of engagement: Analyzing public engagement
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Taylor, M., Haggerty, J., Gresty, D., Wren, C. & Berry, T., 2016. Avoiding the misuse of
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