Benefits And Limitations Of Social Media In The Workplace: A Case Study Of Sunshine 100
Advantages of social media for an organization
Social media is a way to interact with individuals by using the appropriate medium such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. (Tuten and Solomon 2017). In this regard, the current report is based on to identify the benefits and limitations of the use of social media in the workplace. On the other hand, the impact of employee’s comments on the brand image has also been analyzed that damage or build the brand reputation among clients and potential customers. At the end, a communication template has been prepared to introduce the social media policy to staff.
According to Jeske and Shultz (2016), social media is the way to communicate with individuals, to share knowledge, exploit new forms of communication and enhance the collaboration. Use of social media for marketing is helping to reduce the marketing cost because the employees demonstrate the product features on social accounts. Nonetheless, employees not share clear information regarding the company that tends to dissatisfaction among customers and reduces the benefits of the organization. On the contrary, social media has a contribution to increase customer engagement and resolve the queries instantly (Razmerita, Kirchner and Nabeth 2014, p8). Therefore, the use for social media is beneficial to engage and enhance the loyalty among customers, reduce the marketing cost; however, incomplete information in conversation develops dissatisfaction in the consumers.
Use of social media supports to maintain the brand image of the organization among customers, competitors, clients etc. In this regard, employees state the positive comments on the personal accounts and dictate merely company-specific information to grab the attention of potential customers. On the contrary, Bornmann (2014) mentioned that employees use social media to update the status and to create a friendly environment online. Additionally, employees post negative comments over the social sites for the publicity; therefore, the reputation of the company get damaged. Apart from this, employees interact with the target audience through social media platform and enhance the viability of the organization. For example, as per the case study, Sunshine 100 is using the latest technologies of social media such as Twitter, Facebook to interact with customers, clients, staff members, suppliers etc. It helps to share specific information and creates regular connections among employees. Thus, it shows that social media is supportive to protect the brand image but fewer consequences make a negative impact on the customers and brand. Moreover, the social media platform supports to contact with target audiences.
Disadvantages of social media for an organization
In the current business environment, social media is the strong key factor to lead the company’s products in the competitive market (Schlager et al. 2011). The employees comment on the social sites to defend the brand image and demonstrate the quality, attributes of the services. However, employees post negative comments on the social platform and ruin the reputation of the firm. Moreover, staff members operate the personal social accounts within working hours; therefore, the quality time gets affected as well as engagement with customers reduces. For instance, in the case study, one of the individual employees of Sunshine 100 had posted a negative comment over the Facebook regarding the products ‘Junk food is everywhere’. This statement affects the brand image of the company in the market and reduces the involvement of the customers towards the Sunshine 100. On the contrary, the workforce remains committed towards the operating activities of the business and focuses on the effective performance on social media (DiStaso, McCorkindale and Wright 2011). In this case, employees remain in contact with customers by posting the company related comments to create understanding and knowledge instead of spending time over the personal accounts. On the other hand, the reputation of the firm gets affected by communicating the company’s abstract information in everyday attitude, behavior, decisions etc. on the social sites. Here, the employees play a role of the creative person to protect the brand image in the group of stakeholders. Moreover, also focuses on the coverage of consequences of the company on the social media and defend the brand image among clients. Hence, it reflects that behavior of employees on social media affects the brand image in both terms such as positive and negative. Comment over the social media in favor of the company protect the brand image otherwise negative posts reduces the competitiveness in the market and affects the customer’s behavior.
Social media policy of the organization is the blueprint to explain the rules and responsibilities of the employees as well as employers (Vaast and Kaganer 2013). In the case study, Sunshine 100 is focusing on the social media platform to communicate with staff, clients, customers etc. In this regard, Sunshine 100 can include a rule in policy to restrict the use of personal accounts within the workplace to enhance the work quality and engagement with customers. On the other hand, policy should be lenient towards all the employees and focuses on the ethical considerations. Moreover, the staff member should be responsible for the company perspectives that post merely the company-specific information and do not mislead the clients by providing the wrong information. By considering this, Sunshine 100 should include a regulation that employees will remain active during working hours on social media to give feedback on the customer’s issues. Apart from this, Sunshine 100 should be responsible to amend the policy on time basis.
Conclusion
On the basis of the discussion, it has been concluded that the use of social media within the organization is supportive to convey the relevant information on a frequent basis. Social media helps to promote the brand and engage with customers through an active team. However, employees use personal accounts within working hours and post the negative comments that reduce the reputation of the firm among potential clients. Hence, it has also been summarized that merely company specific accounts can be accessed at the workplace to defend the brand.
|
To: Paul Morgan, CEO Sunshine 100 From: Jane Wilson, Director of Marketing Date: 12th January 2019 Subject: Sunshine 100’s social media policy Introduction Social media plays a role in business but can have positive or negative impact on a company (Tuten and Solomon 2017). In the case study, Sunshine 100 is facing the issues with the use of social media within the workplace because employees misuse the liberty and harm the brand image of the company Therefore, a social media policy has been prepared by Director of Sunshine 100 to create awareness among staff regarding use of social media. The purpose of the memo to protect the reputation of Sunshine 100 from negative comments of employees on the social platform. The thesis statement of memo is the importance of use of social media within the organization. At the end, the report examines the benefits, consequences of using social media at the workplace, the impact of staff behavior on brand image, the effectiveness of social media policy and communication plan. Advantages of social media for an organization Employees build self as a multi-tasking by using social media because they stay in contact with more extensive networks (Jeske and Shultz 2016). Further, staff members gain additional knowledge from the communications and use for the enhancement of productivity. In this regard, owing to the case study, social technologies help to increase the productivity by 30% to 35% because employees enhance the speed of communication by keeping the direct contacts; therefore, relationships with customers strengthens and encourage to attach with company. Disadvantages of social media for an organization As per the case study, the use of social of media at workplace harm the brand image in a competitive market because the employees put the negative remarks and post on the social accounts. In this context, the use of social media within working hours mislead the staff from the target and remain involved in the non-business activities. On the other hand, social media distract the focus of employees from the work because individuals have caught on playing the video games, viewing the Facebook at workplace instead of resolving the consequences of the customers as well as clients (Bornmann 2014). Further, use of social media within workplace damage the reputation and increase the chances of possible hacks of the organization. Impact of employee’s comments on the brand image Brand image of the company get affected by the behavior of employees on social media platform because employees are the mirror of the company (DiStaso, McCorkindale and Wright 2011). Staff post the comments on social sites to reflect the company; therefore, it affects the brand image of the firm in the market. However, negative comments of employees damage the reputation in customers because customers prefer the company products on the basis of reviews. On the other hand, most of the employees intentionally comment on Facebook that directly ruins the brand image. In this context, if employees do not activate privacy settings; therefore, the general public can see the inappropriate actions of the staff on social sites. Thus, a negative impression creates in the customers regarding the brand of the company so a privacy setting of social accounts should be mandatory (Bornmann 2014). As per the case, employees of Sunshine 100 had posted a negative comment on Facebook regarding the new KidsFood products. It can create a negative impression in the customers because people always remember the negative aspects instead of positive memories and damage the brand reputation. Elements of social media policy Social media policy has been prepared for the staff members of Sunshine 100 to enhance the speed of work. Sunshine 100 is engaged with the use of social media in the workplace to enhance the collaboration but the employees using social media against the company benefits. In this regard, the management can restrict the use of personal accounts and emphasize to operate the authorized accounts for the conversation. On the other hand, there will be legal framework regarding the use of social media and a rule will be set out. More, behavior of employees should be positive towards the policy that they will not breach the policy otherwise a strict action can be taken against the individuals. Apart from this, Sunshine can include a regulation that staff does not share the feelings and thoughts on the company-specific Twitter account to communicate the followers. Hence, operate the social media to engage the customers and resolve the problems. The company is suggested to provide access to only skilled teams instead of all staff because other employees will get only limited access to operate the account. Hence, it would be effective for the company to protect the brand image from negativities. The director of Sunshine 100 can communicate the strategy to staff in a specific manner as follows-
Conclusion On the basis of the report, it has been concluded that social media is the bridge between customers and companies but the excessive liberty to use social media in workplace damage the brand image. In spite of, employees can use social media to promote the brand by posting positive comments. On the other hand, the use of company-specific accounts is helpful to enhance the connections with customers. |
References
Bornmann, L 2014, Do altmetrics point to the broader impact of research? An overview of benefits and disadvantages of altmetrics. Journal of informetrics, 8(4), pp.895-903.
DiStaso, MW, McCorkindale, T and Wright, DK 2011, How public relations executives perceive and measure the impact of social media in their organizations. Public Relations Review, 37(3), pp.325-328.
Jeske, D and Shultz, KS 2016, Using social media content for screening in recruitment and selection: pros and cons. Work, employment and society, 30(3), pp.535-546.
Razmerita, L, Kirchner, K and Nabeth, T 2014 Social media in organizations: leveraging personal and collective knowledge processes. Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, 24(1), pp.74-93.
Schlager, T, Bodderas, M, Maas, P and Luc Cachelin, J, 2011, The influence of the employer brand on employee attitudes relevant for service branding: an empirical investigation. Journal of Services Marketing, 25(7), pp.497-508.
Tuten, TL and Solomon, MR, 2017, Social media marketing. Sage.
Vaast, E and Kaganer, E 2013, Social media affordances and governance in the workplace: An examination of organizational policies. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 19(1), pp.78-101.