Social Media Policies for Employees: A Comprehensive Analysis

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SOUTHERN CROSS UNIVERSITY
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Social media policies for employees
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Social Media Effect
To: Paul Morgan, CEO, Sunshine 100
From: Jane Wilson, Director of Social Media
Date: 16 January 2019
Subject: Sunshine 100’s social media policy
Background
Social media policy is a document illustrating the conduct of the employees while using social
media platforms at the workplace. It helps to protect the confidential information of the firm and
provides guidelines while responding to the customers’ request.
Purpose
Analyse the benefits of using social media platforms in Sunshine 100 as well as to study the
consequences of breaching the standard protocols by the employees while responding to the
comments posted by the management.
Thesis Statement
Develop the strategy for ensuring effective use of Social media platforms in Sunshine 100
Blueprint
Enumerate the benefits and drawback of using social media platforms and analysing the impact
of negative comments posted by employees.
Potential advantages and disadvantages when an organization using social media.
The advantages and disadvantages of using social media platforms in Sunshine 100 are given
below:
Advantages:
 Social media platforms enable the management to develop appropriate marketing
strategies as information related to the products can be conveyed to a large number of
people simultaneously.
 Using social media platforms such as Facebook enables to communicate with a particular
group of customers. For example, the latest gadgets can be promoted effectively to
students and IT professionals.
 Using social media platforms enables to promote the products at lower costs since firms
need not incur additional expenses (Alalwan et al. 2017).
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 Social media platforms are user-friendly and hence, expert knowledge of IT is not
required thereby enables to send the messages easily and quickly.
Disadvantages:
 It is difficult to monitor the activities of the users in the companies and perform personal
tasks thereby hampering the productivity of the employees.
 Since the messages can be sent instantly, confidential information may be shared
therefore the company may lose competitive advantage over the rivals.
 With the increased use of social media platforms, the instances of data loss and data
breach have also been reported at regular intervals. Thus, the firms using social media
platforms in their operations are prone to frequent cyberattacks.
Impact might an individual employee’s comments or behaviour have on an organisation’s
brand in the sense that it might be seen by broader and unintended audiences.
The social media platform such as Facebook is used in Sunshine 100 as it provides flexibility of
promoting the products effectively and a large number of people will be able to obtain important
details of the products. However, the effectiveness of using these platforms depends on
individual perception and responsibility while sending the messages. The negative behaviour of
the employees may negatively impact the firm’s reputation in the following ways:
 Breach of confidentiality: Employees are bound by the privacy policies and different
types of confidentiality clauses are explained to them in order to ensure that the
confidential information is not communicated to the unintended audience. This may
impact the revenue generation capacity since competitors will be able to take advantage
of negative comments posted about the products or company. The employees may also
reveal trade secrets unintentionally thereby impacting the stakeholders’ interest in the
firm (Ashley & Tuten 2015).
 Affects promotional activities: The marketing and promotion campaigns planned by the
firm may get affected because of employee’s negative feedback on the product or
promotional strategies. The customers may not feel motivated towards purchasing the
products because they will be able to know the negative features of the comments.
 Negative impact on the employment relationship: Posting negative comments results
in affecting the manager-employee relationship and affects the productivity of the firm. It
is well established that coordination among the employees and managers is essential for
maintaining the firm’s competitiveness. Hence, negative comments affect the overall
performance of the firm.
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The interaction that the social media policy covers.
Sunshine 100 should consider drafting a social media policy in order to avoid damages caused
because of unprofessional behaviour of the employees. The firm should consider drafting the
policy by considering the following points:
Providing guidelines for using social media platforms
This includes,
 Providing only the required information to the customers by answering the specific
questions asked by the customers’.
 Personal perception of the employees for using the products should be avoided.
 Maintaining confidentiality related to the company details while communicating using
social media platforms (McDonald & Thompson 2016).
 Personal use of social media platforms should be completely avoided and appropriate
actions should be taken in case of breach of the guidelines.
Roles and Responsibilities:
It is important to explain the individual roles and responsibilities of the employees while using
social media. The roles and responsibilities have to be delegated depending on the position held
by the employees, such as:
 Managers should have the authority to monitor the comments posted by the employees.
 The appropriate training program should be conducted for the employees so that they
follow the professional etiquettes while using social media platforms.
 Employees should take the approval of the supervisors while responding to the critical
messages (Reamer 2015).
 Employees should report any negative comments posted by others and refrain from
forwarding such messages.
Communication strategy
Timing Working hours between 10:30
AM to 5:00 PM
Audience All employees including
managers and supervisors
Sender Jane Wilson, Director of Social
Media (For changes in the
policies).
HR (For changes in an
employment contract for using
social media)
Key Changes in the guidelines and
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messages policies for using social media
Desired
Outcome
Maintaining confidentiality of
company details,
Monitoring the activities of the
employees
Developing professional
etiquettes among the employees
Refraining from using personal
profiles while working
Medium Email communication
Materials MS Word, Power Point
Frequency Quarterly
Conclusion
The report contains the details regarding the use of social media platforms in Sunshine 100. With
the increased use of the internet, social media platforms are being used for marketing and
promotional activities. The benefit is that the marketing activities can be performed by incurring
minimum expenses. However, there are certain drawbacks of using social media such as
messages can be sent to an unintended audience which may cause huge damage to the reputation
of the firm. It is recommended to draft policies for ensuring safety and security of the company
details as well as ensure that the benefits of using social media platforms can be utilised to the
maximum extent.
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References
 Alalwan, A. A., Rana, N. P., Dwivedi, Y. K., & Algharabat, R., 2017. Social media in
marketing: A review and analysis of the existing literature. Telematics and
Informatics, 34(7), 1177-1190.
 Ashley, C. and Tuten, T., 2015. Creative strategies in social media marketing: An
exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology &
Marketing, 32(1), pp.15-27.
 Bloch, A. and McKay, S., 2015. Employment, social networks and undocumented
migrants: The employer perspective. Sociology, 49(1), pp.38-55.
 Dijkmans, C., Kerkhof, P. and Beukeboom, C.J., 2015. A stage to engage: Social media
use and corporate reputation. Tourism Management, 47, pp.58-67.
 McDonald, P. and Thompson, P., 2016. Social media (tion) and the reshaping of
public/private boundaries in employment relations. International Journal of Management
Reviews, 18(1), pp.69-84.
 McDonald, P. and Thompson, P., 2016. Social media (tion) and the reshaping of
public/private boundaries in employment relations. International Journal of Management
Reviews, 18(1), pp.69-84.
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