Sunshine 100: Management Communication Social Media Policy Report

This report analyzes the impact of social media in the workplace, focusing on the case of Sunshine 100. It explores both the advantages, such as enhanced employee networks and marketing potential, and the disadvantages, including decreased productivity and negative impacts from employee posts. The report emphasizes the importance of a well-defined social media policy, detailing crucial aspects like copyright respect, privacy, and courteous conduct. It also includes a communication strategy for disseminating the policy to employees, outlining the key messages, target audience, and desired outcomes. The conclusion summarizes the report's findings, highlighting the significance of social media policies and the strategies for effective communication within organizations. The report also provides a detailed communication strategy, presenting the timing, audience, sender, key message, desired outcome, medium, materials, and frequency for effective policy implementation.

Running head: MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION
Management Communication
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

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To: Paul Morgan, CEO, Sunshine 100
From: Jane Wilson, Director of Social Media
Date: 14th January 2019
Subject: Sunshine 100’s social media policy
Introduction
Social media usage in organizational workplace is increasing across the globe. Different
companies around the globe are making social media usage for a number of reasons, which
includes effective customers’ service, marketing, internal communications, corporate social
responsibility and public relations (Nielsen and Schrøder 2014, p. 471). However, there are
certain issues related to the content that can be posted over social media. Therefore, it is essential
for a company to develop an accurate social media policy that should be followed by all the
employees of the organization.
Thesis Statement: Social Media Use in Workplace might have both positive and negative
impact
Blueprint: The report evaluates the potential advantages and disadvantages of social media use,
Impact of employees comment and behaviour, details of the social media interaction that social
media policy should cover and details of the communication plan.
2. Potential Advantages and Disadvantages for an Organization
On evaluating the case of a Sunshine 100 organization, potential advantages and
disadvantages social media and its usage in organizational workplace can be identified. As

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highlighted in the chosen case study, the use of social media in workplace can act as an effective
medium for business promotions. Social Media usage can be beneficial for increasing the
employee productivity as well (Borgatti, Everett and Johnson, 2018). The potential advantages
of social media usage in an organization are discussed in the sections.
Potential Advantages
The potential advantages of social media usage in workplace are as follows-
1. Social media can beneficial for the organization as the medium can be used to
reinforce networks among the employees, which is beneficial for the organization (Feeney and
Welch 2016, p. 163).
2. Social media can be effectively used to recruit new hires. The social media can be an
effective tool for advertising and marketing.
3. The use of social media pages, such as pages in twitter and Facebook can certainly
help in publishing the content of interest, which in turn can help in attracting the potential
customers (Charoensukmongkol 2014, p. 342).
4. Social Media Usage in workplace can improve the productivity of the employees by 30
to 35 percent.
The above discussed points indicates the significant advantages of social media usage in
workplace. However, the social media usage in workplace has certain disadvantages as well. The
potential disadvantage of social media usage in workplace is indicated in the section below.
Potential Disadvantages

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The disadvantages of social media usage in workplace are as follows-
1. If the employees are provided access to social media inside the employees, they can
spend most of their time in surfing the social media pages, which in turn can decrease their
productivity.
2. If an employee posts any status updates related to company, in their social media
handles, there are chances that the post might affect the company negatively, which has
happened in case of Sunshine 100.
3. Impact of individual employee’s comments or behaviour
An individual’s comment or behaviour can certainly affect a brand or an organization in a
broader sense. Behaviour of an employee over social media can have both positive and negative
impact. In terms of Sunshine 100, an unintended post of an employee have affected a new project
of an organization in a negative manner. The post can severely affect the performance of a
company (Dijkmans, Kerkhof and Beukeboom 2015, p. 62). Therefore, it is essential to
understand the impact of an employees’ comment and behaviour and for that it is essential to
keep a track of an employee’s activity in workplace (Cardon and Marshall 2015, p. 280). On the
contrary, the posts promoting the company’s products can act as a major reason behind the
business growth.
4. Social media interaction that social media policy should cover
As an example of the negative aspects of use of social media in workplace, the Sunshine
100 has indicated certain clauses that a social media policy should cover. These are as follows-
1. Respect of the copyright

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2. Avoiding the revelation of the personal information
3. Courtesy: the employees need to be courteous in their social media posting, while
posting content of the organization
4. Avoidance of revealing any personal information.
5. Communication strategy
A communication strategy is developed for the director of social media to communicate
the social media policies to the staffs. The communication strategy is evaluated in the table
below-
Timing 11 am
Audience All the Employees and Staffs of the Organization
Sender Director of Social Media
Key Message Policy Regarding the social media usage in
workplace, that are needed to be acknowledged
Desired Outcome It is expected that all the employees will abide by
the rules and will acknowledge the Social media
Policy
Medium Email
Materials Printed copy of the email and the policy that are
needed to be circulated to the employees.
Frequency Once in six months
The key points that are social media policy should cover is represented in the slides below-

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6. Conclusion
The report discusses the potential advantages and disadvantages of social media usage in
workplace. The impact of the social media usage in workplace is discussed in the report. On

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evaluation of the case of Sunshine 100, the different social clauses that a social media policy
should cover is discussed in the report. The report evaluates the impact of making usage of social
media on the organizations and its seriousness. The report discusses the process by which an
organization can develop a social media policies. The report evaluates the strategies for
communicating the social media policies of the staffs.

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References
Borgatti, S.P., Everett, M.G. and Johnson, J.C., 2018. Analyzing social networks. Sage.
Cardon, P.W. and Marshall, B., 2015. The hype and reality of social media use for work
collaboration and team communication. International Journal of Business
Communication, 52(3), pp.273-293.
Charoensukmongkol, P., 2014. Effects of support and job demands on social media use and work
outcomes. Computers in Human Behavior, 36, pp.340-349.
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.
Feeney, M.K. and Welch, E.W., 2016. Technology–task coupling: Exploring social media use
and managerial perceptions of e-government. The American Review of Public
Administration, 46(2), pp.162-179.
Fuchs, C., 2017. Social media: A critical introduction. Sage.
Nielsen, R.K. and Schrøder, K.C., 2014. The relative importance of social media for accessing,
finding, and engaging with news: An eight-country cross-media comparison. Digital
journalism, 2(4), pp.472-489.