Developing Social Media Policy: A Case Study of Sunshine 100 Company

This case study examines Sunshine 100's approach to social media policy, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of social media use in the workplace, and its impact on the organization's brand image. The analysis covers enhanced collaboration, employee engagement, and efficient information dissemination as benefits, while also addressing concerns like productivity hindrance, information leakage, and security risks. The study emphasizes the need for a well-defined social media policy that considers legal rules, usage extent, and authoritative framework to avoid conflicts of interest and information breaches. It concludes by suggesting that management study both the positive and negative aspects of social media communication and incorporate necessary governance standards into the policy for effective implementation. The communication strategy includes timing, audience, sender, key message, desired outcome, medium, materials, and frequency for policy dissemination and enforcement.

MEMO 1
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 increasing utilisation of technology has transformed a number of functions and processes
of business organisations around the globe. One such process that has been deeply affected
by the use of the internet and social media is the communication. Social media has changed
the ways in which the entities communicate. The memo is aimed at analysing a series of
social media events that have had negative consequences for the company. The advantages,
disadvantages of the social media use would be described which will aid in the development
of social media policy for the organisation.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Some of the major advantages that have been yielded by the use of social media are described
as follows. One of the major advantages is that it allows the enhanced collaboration activities
within the organisations. The collaboration is enhanced as it allows the arranging of the
meetings, spreading of the information and thus seeking of the opinions around the globe, in
real time. Further the social media aids in the employee engagement, which further enables
employee retention and innovation in human resource activities. As the employees can
connect to the professionals, and other members of the team with the aid of the social media
technology, solve each other queries irrespective of distances, seek team support and overall
motivations level is known to be increased (Leftheriotis & Giannakos, 2014). In addition, the
benefit of the social media usage is that it enables the employees to seek information with
respect to customer feedbacks more efficiently, and thus allows the implementation and
testing the new ideas quickly (Mainiero & Jones, 2013). It must be further be noted that
social media is extremely beneficial in the events of implementation of changes in internal
and external business strategies. These not only aid the members to understand the change,
but also keeps the external stakeholders updated (Holland, Cooper & Hecker, 2016). Lastly,
the social media use enables the overall psychological assistance to the employees; by
enabling to take breaks from work and to develop inter personal relationships.

MEMO 2
However, a certain number of disadvantages that are listed as follows also govern the social
media use at the workplace. The prime disadvantage is that it creates hindrance in the
productivity of the employees, if the number of hours on the same is not limited (Baruach,
2012). In addition, another major issue is the possibility of the leakage of information to the
wider and unintended group of audiences, from the communication channel (Robertson &
Kee, 2017). Thus, the information gained at the workplace is at risk of being spread to the
competitors, if security features do not govern the same. In addition, there exist the barriers of
time and language in the use of social media at workplace. Last, to state that as it involves
internet and information technology, there is a risk of security in form of privacy intrusions,
loss of data; and the violation of digital and information statutes of a nation.
Social media use and organisations brand image
In addition to the above, it is significant to note that social media usage yields positive
impacts on the organisation’s brand as a whole. The use yields positive impacts in
advertising, marketing, refining the communications by the creation of groups and
information repository and thus, promoting the products, brand, and services within and
outside the organisations (Van Zoonen, Verhoeven & Vliegenthart, 2017). However it must
also be noted that the content posted by the members of the social media can deeply impact
the organisation in negative terms as well.
Contents of Social Media Policy
Thus, in order to formulate an effective and efficient communication strategy, managers must
consider the legal rules with respect to the usage of information technology. In addition, the
policy must regulate the extent of the use allowed, and the authoritative framework that is the
designated individuals to carry out communication on behalf of entity. This is essential to
avoid the conflict of interest and loss of significant information in wrong hands.
Communication Strategy
1. Timing- Immediate Basis
2. Audience- Senior Management and members of the organization
3. Sender- Communication Manager
4. Key Message- Viability of social media communication in the organization and its
impacts
5. Desired Outcome- Designing the social media communication policy for the entity

MEMO 3
6. Medium- Memo, E mails,
7. Materials- Code of conduct of entity, rules and regulations of the government
8. Frequency- Every quarter
Thus, as per the discussions conducted in the previous parts, it can be concluded that social
media has become a significant part of the communication channels of the enterprises. Thus,
the management is suggested to study both the aspects of the social media communication
and incorporate the necessary governance standards in the policy for effective
implementation.

MEMO 4

MEMO 5

MEMO 6
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.