MNG81001 Report: Social Media Policy for Sunshine 100 Analysis

This report analyzes a case study involving Sunshine 100, focusing on the development and implementation of a social media policy. The report, written in the format of a memo from the Director of Social Media, Jane Wilson, addresses the challenges social media poses to organizations, contrasting them with traditional communication channels. It examines how employee behavior and comments on social media impact a company's identity, image, and reputation. The report outlines the five key components of a social media policy: defining the target audience, understanding legal ramifications, setting expectations for privacy and behavior, encouraging positive sharing, and keeping the policy concise. Furthermore, it details a communication strategy for the Director of Social Media, including defining goals, building a strong social media community, and maintaining a consistent outlook. The report references various academic sources to support its analysis and recommendations, aiming to provide a comprehensive overview of social media management and policy development within the context of the Sunshine 100 case study.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Management Communication
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1MANAGEMENT
To: Paul Morgan, CEO, Sunshine 100
From: Jane Wilson, Director of Social Media
Date: 5th May 2019
Subject: Sunshine 100’s social media policy
Mr. Paul Morgan,
This is to inform you that social media tools have posed significant challenges for organizations.
A comparison and contrast has been drawn between the challenges posed by the social media
and that of the traditional channels for giving you a better understanding.
Most news that reaches people on a day to day basis come from the various social media cites.
This has been found to impact the viewership and the readership of print as well as the television
media. The challenges of social media tools are that it often forward misinformation that gives
rise to serious problems within the society. Children are also found to spend a huge amount of
time on the social media sites not only has negative impact on their studies but also on their mind
as they remain exposed to things that are mostly inappropriate for their age. The advent of the
social media has also prevented people from meeting one another face to face. In other words,
social media has prevented the tradition of face to face communication amongst the people.
Compared to the social media, although traditional channels can help people in experiencing the
real world communication it comes with its own challenges. Adopting a traditional means of
communication would imply a one way process of communication. Besides, the aspect of the
word of mouth in the traditional media does not scatter the information that rapidly to a larger
audience and there is no feedback system. Traditional channels also lack the experience of the

2MANAGEMENT
community as most often the viewers cannot identify them with the product or the brand.
Although advertisers spends huge amount of money in reaching the target audience but most
often the efforts are seen to fail.
Let me now provide you an overview of how the comments of the employees or their behaviour
have on the identity, image or the reputation of the organization when viewed by the broader and
the unintended audience. It has been found that over 2 million people across the world have been
the users of the social media thereby making it one of the logical platforms for the companies
attracting the potential employees and engaging the consumers with the brand. Besides, sharing
of information on the brand activities through the social media accounts or pages, organizations
have also allowed employees in engaging in private social media activities. In the professional
space an employee comment or behaviour on the social media both acts as a risk and opportunity
for the organization. Negative comments of the employees on the brands or the industry where
in which they operate are believed to have a credible impact on their contact network. Based on
the substance of the remarks the impact on wider audience can be positive or negative. Research
showed that the opportunity of using the employees as the brand ambassadors has only been
partially tapped. Most often it has been found that the employees expects the younger employees
in following the employers brand on the social media, sharing the appropriate links, recommend
not only the products but also the job opportunities of the candidate which has been met with a
lower brand engagement on the social media.
In devising a social media policy, companies must consider the five components of the social
media interaction. This includes:

3MANAGEMENT
1. Establishing Who the Policy is actually Intended For: It is necessary to be clear the
individuals being affected by implementing the policy along with a consideration of what the
policy actually entails. Some of the key aspects to consider include
 Tone of the voice and the usage of the online language online
 Industry regulations and standards and
 Training and Education strategies for mitigating risk
 Online Security (for instance, password protection and download etiquette)
 Best Practices related to employee advocacy
2. Understanding the Potential of Legal Ramifications: Irrespective of whether the staff s are
unionized or non unionized, care needs to be taken regarding the language to be used on
instructing people.
3. Setting Expectations for Privacy and Behavior: In refining the social media policy there is
a need to know on what exactly seems acceptable from the professional perspective. It also
involves encouraging the employees in separating the personal and the professional profiles as
required.
4. Encourage the Aspect of Positive Sharing: The social media policy mostly focuses on the
restrictions in respect to what the team can say or can share. To ensure effective media
interaction it is necessary to scrutinize the kind of message that individual wants to share.
5. Keeping it Simple and Short: It is necessary to be clear about how the employees are
expected to perform in specific situations.

4MANAGEMENT
This section provides you with overview of the communication strategy for Director of the
Social Media for communicating the social media policies to the staff. This includes:
1. Clarity in defining the goal and the target audience: This involves establishment of the
clearer goals that allows the director to undertake communication of brands in terms of the
quality and the type of the content, outlook and voice of the content and the layout and the color
of the social media platforms along with portraying the long term and the current intentions.
2. Building a stronger presence of social media community: Another means of providing
the brand with massive boost implies building stronger presence of social media. It becomes
better with a stronger community of social media. This involves creation of engaging content for
speaking directly to the target audience through addressing the needs.
3. Having a consistent outlook along with uniform strategy: This involves customization
of the social media platform in a manner that it drives the project along with promoting the
brand.
In short, I believe that the above discussion is able to provide you with a proper insight into the
social media that will be helpful for you in future endeavors of promoting the brand. Thank you
very much.

5MANAGEMENT
References:
Enginkaya, E. and Yılmaz, H., 2014. What drives consumers to interact with brands through
social media? A motivation scale development study. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 148, pp.219-226.
Godey, B., Manthiou, A., Pederzoli, D., Rokka, J., Aiello, G., Donvito, R. and Singh, R., 2016.
Social media marketing efforts of luxury brands: Influence on brand equity and consumer
behavior. Journal of business research, 69(12), pp.5833-5841.
Huang, J., Baptista, J. and Galliers, R.D., 2013. Reconceptualizing rhetorical practices in
organizations: The impact of social media on internal communications. Information &
Management, 50(2-3), pp.112-124.
Jussila, J.J., Kärkkäinen, H. and Aramo-Immonen, H., 2014. Social media utilization in business-
to-business relationships of technology industry firms. Computers in Human Behavior, 30,
pp.606-613.
Labrecque, L.I., 2014. Fostering consumer–brand relationships in social media environments:
The role of parasocial interaction. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 28(2), pp.134-148.
Okazaki, S. and Taylor, C.R., 2013. Social media and international advertising: theoretical
challenges and future directions. International marketing review, 30(1), pp.56-71.
Schivinski, B. and Dabrowski, D., 2016. The effect of social media communication on consumer
perceptions of brands. Journal of Marketing Communications, 22(2), pp.189-214.

6MANAGEMENT