Telstras Social Media Engagement Policy - Case Study Example

Running header: IMC Student’s name: Instructor’s name: Subject code: Date of submission: 1. a) Some social media channels enable account holders to set and manage private settings allowing them to limit access to selected friends and contacts. However, as Mark Zukerberg the Face book founder puts it, users no longer have an expectation of privacy. Realistically, people you have never met, your friends, relatives and even the government can access the information you share on social media with you not having a right or reasonable expectation for privacy as implied in the face book privacy policy. Generally speaking, social media has been designed to be public unless the user makes it private. It is supposed to connect people to one another and is largely an open forum (Larry, 2011). As such, expecting privacy on social media such as twitter and face book is like one yelling out in a crowded town square yet expecting privacy. Social media consists of information that individuals volunteer for the entire internet to see provided they are connected to your social media account. It is logical to say that if one uses his/her real name, photo and real birthday on social media, he/she can not claim to be private anymore. This implies that the only way to avoid being public on social media is to avoid giving private information on social media. A look at Face book’s statement of rights and responsibility seems to suggest that although the company values the users’ privacy, they do not guarantee this privacy and it seems that it is only the user who can ensure that he/she does not share information he/she intends to be private on such a public forum. Furthermore, it seems to suggest that once you share information on face book, you grant some rights regarding the use of the information to the company implying that you also waive your right to privacy over the information. For instance, the statement states that the user grants the company non-exclusive rights to use any IP content that one posts on face book. As such, any information shared on social media should be treated as public and not private (Face book, 2014). This is because it is highly likely that it will be accessed even by those that were never intended to access it provided they are on the same platform. For instance, while an employee of Telstra may share some official information on official face book platform not intended for public consumption, this information may eventually end up being public hence affecting the company’s image either positively or negatively . This indicates the need to treat communication on social media as public and not private and hence come up with policies guiding how information should be released on social media to ensure that only constructive information is released especially for business organizations. b) It has been established that information posted on social media such as face book and twitter should be treated as public rather than private. As such, it is expected that one is aware and has expectation that anyone can have access to such information regardless of how such information is likely to affect one’s image. As such, the only way to keep private information as private is to avoid sharing it on social media platforms. For instance when one shares information that he/she does not intend his/her boss or prospective employer to see on social media to see, he/she is availing it for free to the unintended parties. This can be worse when the information is shared as public information say on face book since then anyone can access such information. But even when it is shared as private information, those you have allowed to access such information will certainly access it and they may also share it with their private friends and eventually the information may reach the unintended individuals. As such, it is wise not to post anything that one does not intend his/her boss or perspective employer to read on social media platforms such as face book and twitter. 2. Although Telstra’s social media engagement policy is designed primarily to protect the company and the brand, their policy also provides protection for employees. It should be noted that social media allows everyone to post basically anything online with some employees posting offensive, inappropriate and obscene comments and actions related to their jobs on social media. Such posts are most likely to have negative effects not only on the company and its brands but also on the employees and hence put their jobs at risk. It is the responsibility of such businesses as Telstra to build a positive identity for the company while at the same time helping the employees understands how they can contribute to a good public image for the company through the use of social media. This is the reason behind Telstra’s social media policy. Although the sole intention of the policy is to protect the brand, it also protects the employees in a number of ways including; i) The policy grants the right for the employees to use social media both for official and official use while making it clear that they are responsible for how they use social media. It also grants them the right to seek clarification and advice before posting information on social media where they are in doubt regarding the policy. This ensures that the employees engage in responsible use of social media and hence they refrain from engaging in unethical postings on social media. This has the effect of not only protecting the company’s reputation and the brand image but also their personal image as individuals (Telstra, 2011). This is because they are the picture of the company as individuals and if they have a bad image, the company’s image will also be at stake. In addition, the employee’s job is protected since he/she would refrain from posting information that puts the company’s image at stake since he/she is aware that he/she will be held accountable for such actions probably leading to loss of employment. ii) The social media principle requires the employees to adhere to the terms of use while conforming to the cultural and behavioral norms of the social media platform being used. This is regardless of whether the employee is acting on an official capacity as an employee or in a private capacity. This calls for the employee to adhere to legal imperatives including copyright, privacy and relevant regulations that govern publishing of online content. It can be argued that such a guideline is more beneficial to the employee than it is to the company. This is because anyone who breaks such a policy would be held responsible individually regardless of whether they were in Telstra or not. The policy calls for ethical behavior from the employee as they engage on social media and also between them and the various social media platforms they engage in. this would ensure that the employee is not engaged in illegal activities on social media and hence guarantees him/her continued and peaceful engagement in social media. iii) The policy outlines what the employees should consider confidential information and from where they can obtain non confidential information with the right to confirm before sharing any information regarding the company on social media. This is in addition to being clear about the consequences the employee may face by engaging in unethical actions online (Glynn and Faulds, 2009). This ensures that the employee avoids problems that would arise from irresponsible online communication. iv) The policy designates the spokesperson for the company for answering company questions on social media hence ensuring the employee only plays the role he is entitled to play as far as social media communication is concerned. This is in addition to compulsory training on social media use to ensure employees are well versed with responsible social media use. 3. Why social media policy should be grounded on ethics A social media policy should not be simply a list of dos and don’ts. Instead, it should be grounded in ethics. The manager needs to understand that social media allows everyone to share anything on social media with some people including employees taking advantage of this to post obscene and dishonest information even regarding the company on social media thus adversely affecting the company’s image. The manager should also understand that employees right to communication can not be overlooked and hence designing a social media policy that is mainly dos and don’ts may not work since the organization is also required to respect employees right to communication (Blackshaw and Nazzaro, 2004). This brings the role of ethics to play with social media communication. In other words, a successful social media policy will only be one which is based on ethics as opposed to only dos and don’ts. A social media policy based on ethics will encourage employees to share credible information that gives the company and the brand a positive image. This is likely to build trust for the company hence leading to increased business. In addition, such a policy would encourage employees to be considerate of others opinions and perspectives and hence they will be open to them thus encouraging good stakeholder relations. A social media policy based on ethics as opposed to the one purely based on dos and don’ts encourages the employees to be ware of those able to access their information, what they are sharing and what is said and shared about the company. Thus they will be careful to share what does not damage the company’s credibility. In addition, they will take time to analyze negative comments about the company and respond in a positive manner and trigger action to correct a bad brand image. In addition, a social media policy encourages the employees to observe the following ethical principles when engaging in social media as opposed to the one based purely on dos and don’ts; i) Honesty –employees will be encouraged to only communicate true information regarding the company and be clear about opinion vs. facts ii) Transparency –the policy would encourage employees to be straight forward about who they are and who they represent on social media iii) Respect –such a policy would encourage employee to observe respect not only for the company but also for other social media users. iv) Privacy –such a policy would encourage the employees to observe company privacy and avoid sharing company’s confidential information on social media (Theodore, 2014). v) Responsibility –A policy based on ethics enables the employees to be responsible of all they share online and hence they would be careful not to harm themselves or risk their jobs or the company’s image. Thus, a policy based on ethics is beneficial to both the company and the employees as opposed to one based on dos and don’ts which would not even be successful in safeguarding the company’s interests. 4. Telstra’s social media engagement policy requires all employees to adhere to the terms of use and seek to conform to the cultural and behavioral norms, of the social media platform being used. From a marketing communications perspective, this proviso makes sense. It should be noted that this policy is closely aligned with legal imperatives including copyright, privacy and relevant regulations that govern publication of online contents. It should also be noted that the policy seeks to guide the social contract bringing the social media use and sustains communities. As such, the policy can be termed as providing ethical guidelines on how to engage on social media and providing conducive environment for engagement on social media. On the other hand, marketing can largely be considered to be successful where there is such conducive environment and where a good public image for the company and the individual employees exist (Solomon, 2012). As such, such a policy seeks to protect the company from bad publicity from outsiders while protecting itself from bad publicity that may result from the actions of its employees. When employees breach such a policy in their capacity as employees, this definitely brings the company’s image to stake and hence hinders the company’s marketing efforts from being successful since the company will be seen as not being ethical and not respecting other people’s rights on social media. Even where employees breach such policy in their private capacity, they can still be traced back to the company thus putting the company’s image at stake. Thus, this proviso makes sense in marketing terms as it seeks to guide the relationship between the company and the outside world in the social media platform. This ensures that the company’s public image is preserved thus providing a good marketing environment and hence leading to successful marketing efforts. 5. Considering each of the three principles which underpin Telstra’s social media engagement policy; representation, responsibility and respect, this is what the Telstra employee did wrong by maintaining the fake Stephen Conroy Twitter site; Representation: It is highly likely that the employee was doing this in his private capacity and not as Telstra’s employee. However, he may have referred to Telstra or unknowing identified himself as Telstra’s employee while still maintaining that he was the minister. This may have been done by making use of the company’s platform or including Telstra’s logos and trademarks in his postings (Belch etal. 2011). Obviously this had the effect of damaging Telstra’s reputation hence bringing the company into disrepute as it showed the company as having dishonest employees who engage in unethical dealings. The employee should never have misrepresented himself more so using platforms that could have identified himself with the company. Responsibility The employee did not act responsibly for the contents he used to post online. Furthermore, he did nothing to adhere to the company’s policy on acceptable use of Telstra’s provided services and information systems. Had he been responsible, he should have ensured that he did not post material that was defamatory. In other words, he should never have misrepresented himself using the company’s platform or any other platform that would have eventually identified himself with the company. Respect It is clear that the employee failed to be respectful to those he was interacting with online and more so to the minister he was misrepresenting. Even if he was committing the act as a private person, he failed to adhere to Twitters terms of use and also failed to conform to cultural and behavioral norms. This is because no ethical social media platforms would encourage one misrepresenting himself. As such, the employee totally failed to adhere to the company’s 3Rs policy by maintaining the fake Conroy twitter site thus harming the company’s image. References Telstra, 2011, The 3Rs of social media engagement, Retrieved on 4th April 2014, from; http://exchange Telstra.com.au/training/flip.html, Face book, 2014, Face book’s statement of rights and responsibilities, Retrieved on 4th April 2014, from; www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf, Glynn, W&, Faulds, J2009, Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix, Business Horizons, vol. 52, pp. 357-365. Blackshaw, P&, Nazzaro, M2004, Consumer generated media (CGM) 101: word of mouth in the age of the web fortified consumer, Retrieved on 4th April 2014, from; http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com/whitepapers Solomon, T2012, Social media marketing, London, Prentice Hall. Belch, G, Belch, M, Kerr, G&, Powell, I2011, Advertising: An integrated marketing communications perspective, McGraw-Hill. Theodore, F2014, Privacy and social media, Retrieved on 4th April 2014, from; http://www.economist.com/node/12284475 Larry, P2011, Strategic integrated marketing communications, London, Rutledge. Read More