BUSINESS
COMMUNICATION
CHAPTER 6: UTILISING SOCIAL MEDIA ETHICALLY
NEHA MUNGAL
CHAPTER OUTCOMES
AFTER STUDYING THIS CHAPTER, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO:
• Explain the term ethics
• Explain ethical behaviour in the workplace
• Explain the ethical use of social media with a focus on the social media at
the workplace
WHAT IS ETHICS?
• Before we discuss social media as a communication channel, we first
have to look at ethics. We need to establish what it means and how to
apply it.
• Olds College, (n.d) claims that Ethical behaviour asks you to be
concerned about what is inherently right or wrong in a given situation.
The right thing to do may not always be obvious, and sometimes you
have an ethical dilemma when there’s no clear answer. To help in
situations when you are trying to behave and communicate ethically, most
organisations have guidelines in place to help people act in a way that is
considered more right than wrong.
BUSINESS ETHICS
• There are ethical approaches to accessing information with respect to
writing and working in organisations. With so much information around
and easy access to information, organisations often seek to effectively
and efficiently manage access to information.
• All companies have a code of conduct that relates to ethics, values and
rules. All employees need to abide by these company policies and
procedures.
ETHICS AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media can provide new ways of connecting with potential and current
customers, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders.
Social media offers companies the opportunity to speed up the pace of business,
better establish the message that the company wants to convey, strengthens the
company’s relationships with customers and further facilitates a continuous
conversation about the business.
It is clear that there are benefits to using social media, not only to communicate
messages to audiences but to build a relationship with the stakeholders.
However, as helpful as social media can be for business, it can be just as bad if not
well maintained and managed. This includes breach of confidentiality, conflicts of
interest and misuse of company resources.
If social media is mismanaged, it can cause tremendous damage to a business and its
reputation. The business can face numerous risks and lose business opportunities.
EMPLOYEES CAN DAMAGE THE COMPANY’S
REPUTATION WITHOUT EVEN REALISING IT.
Employees who have access to social media during work hours can misuse their work time
and can cause delays in their work.
Employees who use the company’s resources such as their company computers and internet
connection can be seen as a risk.
Furthermore, employees using the company’s name or logo or their copyright information
pose a further risk when accessing social media during work hours.
When employees access various sites and social media channels at work, it can potentially
harm the company’s computer system and network, and risk introducing malicious software
onto the system.
When employees share and discuss inappropriate social media posts at work, this can be
seen as harassment.
Employees should be wary of posting or reposting comments and advertisements on social
media about the products and services of their company’s competitors. This can be seen as
conflict of interest.
• Similarly, if employees write and post false reviews about a competitor’s products
or services, this can be seen as fraud.
• Employees should be wary of sharing customers’ personal information on social
media.
• Employees should be aware of personal reputation damage. Personal reputation
damages refer to employees posting personal information and activities on their
own social media pages that can lead the company or others to believe that the
user is unprofessional or inappropriate. This can negatively impact on a company’s
reputation.
CORPORATE SOCIAL MEDIA
• Collecting and using personal and corporate information belonging to individuals who contribute.
• Limiting the authorised personnel contributing to these channels
• Reviewing the information before posting on social media
• Ensuring to disclose the company’s rights to redistribute other’s contribution
• Disclosing any company conflicts of interest with information posted on its social media channels
It is important for companies to set realistic expectations. Certain social media channels might help
employees improve their business or professional knowledge or business research. Employees may
also benefit from using social media by getting involved in charitable or other community
activities.
Appropriate use of social media can grow the business. Employees can interact on social media
for communication, marketing and sales activities. In certain industries, companies rely on social
media for entertainment, marketing and advertising, and expect their employees to access the
social media platforms.
CONCLUSION
This chapter discussed ethics and how it relates to social media. We
explained positive and negative usage of social media in the workforce.
We highlighted how social media can be beneficial for businesses but can
also lead to their failure if not managed appropriately. We also
highlighted the importance for companies to put a code of conduct in place
to ethically guide employees’ use of social media.
