Social Media Communication - Telstra - Assignment Example

Social Media Communication: Telstra Case Study Name Institution a) Why is it necessary to treat communications on platforms such as Facebook as public rather than private? Like any other form of social media, Facebook spreads information in a very rapid form across the globe. In as much as the Facebook fraternity entitles every user to their accounts and holds every user accountable to every information they post on their accounts. At personal levels, one should understand their role and the influence they have on the society, the position they hold in companies and how the information they post may impact on the communicate, influence those who read and the influence (Brady, 1996). When the employees post personal comments concerning their company, they may not realize that such comments play part in forming marketing twists that could affect the planned messages of the company. As discussed in the case study, while this can pose problems to the company, it could be beneficial as unplanned communication form employees may be viewed as authentic communication more than it can be done y advertising. It is however t necessary for the employees to understand that even though they post personal information, opinions, feelings and thoughts, they should understand that they are communicating to the public and if a certain level of responsibility is not considered, it easily could end up disastrous. For instance in the case study, the Telstra employer who ran a fake twitter account for Stephen Conroy, minister for communication in Rudd Labor Government, may have done it for personal reasons. However, he apparently did not understand the immensity of the matter, the significance of his position in the company. When the issue was disclosed, it had a very negative impact on the company. The issue attracted negative attention and complex unappealing situations given the already strained relationships between federal government and the company. As such, successful organizations educate their employees to understand that such communications on social media is more public than private. This is because employee communication can influence greatly on the company’s band, customer brand experience and reputation. a) Why shouldn’t you post something you would not want your future employer to read? In as much as ones posts on Facebook may affect the company’s reputations and brand creation and at times strain relationships between personalities. The posts can have great impact on one own image. One’s next boss would be interested in analyzing how one’s personal contact can be advantageous to the image of concern. As such, social media would easily be an area of great concern. One future employer may be interested in how one act responsible on social media and respects the privacy and policies of the company he works for (Brady, 1996). As such, a private user should be cautious about what they would want their next boss to read about them and to understand about their personalities. In this case, one should be keen not to post what they would not want the future boss to read. 1. Although Telstra’s social media engagement policy is designed primarily to protect the company, how do you think their policy also provides protection for the employees? In the current cooperate world, companies find it necessary to create safe working environments for their employees. This includes making policies that protect employees while on duty and initiating a mutual responsibility between the employees and the companies. This is as studies continuously reveal the high productivity of employee’s whole feel safe in their working environments and that the company takes a certain level of commitment towards protecting their interests provided they operate within the companies stipulated policies and regulations. Companies that deal with communication find an extra need of protecting employees as often their employees are held accountable by different institutions, including the government, business entities, and the public concerning the information they offer to the public. Such protection is defined deep in the company’s policies and is firmly embedded in the company’s culture and code of ethics. Telstra, a telecommunication company providing communication solutions and ongoing media content to companies, businesses and private customers struggle to remain relevant to its course and in the market by retaining the ability to compete successfully and articulate clear robust brand. This in a way entails ensuring that each employee understand s their role in the company and understands the company’s commitment towards ensuring that each employ operates in a safe environment. The company is always taking chances with innovations and currently has engaged social media which includes twitter and Facebook. It should however be understood that social media is a sensitive Endeavour as the company should understand that employees will be using this innovation both for personal and professional purposes. Ethical use of social medial in such a situation requires that employees clearly separate official from personal communication if at all professionalism is anything to go by. Understanding the complexity of this issue, and basing on the occurrences that raised unappealing scenarios such as the Stephen Conroy fake account operated by one of Telstra employees, the company has come with policies that would protect its reputation and brand in such scenarios and in a way protect the employees. These outlines clear ethical standards that guide the operations of the employees through clearly separating duty with personal engagements with social media. The company has designed a 3R formula for social engagement. These stand for representation, responsibility, and respect. The policy is aimed at separating employees who are expected to use media for the sake of business from those who are not expected. It also outlines online ethics y forbidding behavior that may bring the company in disrepute. The three tenets of respect, responsibility, and representation do just allow and forbid some online behaviors but entails principles that formulate a robust foundation for ethical to benefit both employees and the company (Social Media - Telstra’s 3 Rs of Social Media Engagement, 2011). The first principle which is aligned with transparency and disclosure is representation. This principle requires that the employees make clear their relationship with the company before commenting anything about Telstra. This includes indicating whether the employee is authorized by the company to speak on its behalf or no. to the company, this principle allows for appropriate and timely handling of information that may be commercially sensitive and the information about the company that may not yet be in the public domain. This principle also protects the employee such that they cannot be held accountable or questioned every time they commend on the company but rather in this be considered as a private discussion are comment. From the perspective of ethics, rights come with responsibility, hence the company’s second principle of online operation. The principle does not seek to prevent employees from using social media, a fact that protects the rights of employees. The principle rather assigns given responsibilities to employees regarding their online behavior in line with authorized or personal use. The policy clearly outlines that employees should be responsible for their own social media behavior and in case they fail to understand their how the principle applies to them, they should ask. It should be understood that the guiding employees’ online behavior not only protects the reputation of the company but that of employees too. Employees in the end would want to be viewed as responsible and ethical by the company, business entities, and the public. Additionally, the principle acknowledges and protects the employee’s right to use social media. Respect, the final requirement is closely tied to legal principles of privacy, copyright and relevant policies governing the publication of any online content. However, the principle most importantly privileges social contact that binds the use of social media and sustains different communities. This principle requires that the employees conform to the behavioral and cultural norms of the platform of social media being used. The standards of behavior described in this bind both unauthorized and authorized employees. This calls upon the employees to be keen with the platform in which they present their comments and thereby understand the form in which to present them. These policies comprehensively work for both the company and the employees and the company as they establish a framework of regulations that determine an ethical standard of behavior with regard to online operations. The strength of the policy lies in the fact that it recognizes the social principle that define social media and allowing employees their right to use social media without being much restricted to the dos and don’ts of the company. The policy or regulation does not allow employees to freely say what they want about the company but speak openly and responsibly about Telstra. In trying to make the employees mindful of the company’s reputation, the company automatically establishes the reputation of the employees and builds their ethical online behavior. 2. Your manager is developing a new social media policy. He believes it should simply have a list of dos and don’ts. Explain to him why the policy should be grounded in the ethics. Setting up new policies in a company relies on a number of things. Of course each company enacts policies with an aim of guiding the employees towards the maximum achievement of the companies set objectives. The initial regulations of any company bind employees in a specific organizational culture and it is upon this culture that a company establishes its image and brand (Brady, 1996). The subsequent policies that emerge due to innovations in the company should thereby be designed basing on this on this culture but directed towards a certain target. In enacting a new social media policy, it is not enough for the manager thereby to merely state a list of dos and don’ts, but rather fall back in the companies culture to design policies that shall establish an ethical standards upon which employee shall judge the rightfulness or wrongfulness in every action they engage in. Dos and don’ts or rather prescriptive rules are more rigid and in some way may bar creativity (Brady, 1996). Ethics on the other hand entitles the employees judgment of wrong and right. In an organization, either groups or individual employees may make decisions. Regardless of it is, the decisions made are greatly influenced by the culture of the organization. Consequently, a social media policy should be placed or adjusted in line with the company’s culture. Rather than dos and don’ts, the new policy should initiate a culture of responsibility which triggers the employees to behave in an ethical manner concerning online communication. The choice to behave in an ethical manner is amoral choice and this is what the organizations social media policy should seek to establish rather than prescribing to the employees what they are and are not supposed to do. 3. Telstra social media engagement policy requires all employees to adhere to the cultural and behavioral policy norms, the social media platform being used. From a marketing perspective, why does this provision make sense? It is the responsibility of each Telstra employee to understand and comply with the terms of use of social media and strive to conform to the behavioral and cultural norms of the social media platform being used. From the marketing perspective point of view, a platform presents a forum in which particular issues are presented. To ensure that the issues are presented in an organized manner norms develop within that platform. It is necessary that the employees of Telstra remain relevant to the specific platform, thereby conforming to the behavioral and cultural standards of the platform. For the sake of the company’s reputation and to put its marketing plans in the desired direction, this requirement makes sense (Sims, 2002). However, for the sake of creativity and innovation, this requirement could be a hindrance. As explained in the case study, unplanned communications from employees can be considered as grassroots and authentic than advertising thereby has greater impact. Consequently, instead of Telstra initiating a policy that shall require employees to strictly conform to the behavioral and cultural norms the company should allow some flexibility and educate the employees more on the ways in which they could engage social media to build the company’s reputation, improve its brand image, and promote its businesses. 4. After reading through the policy, explain what the Telstra employee did wrong by maintaining the fake Stephen account? According to the 3R policies, Telstra acknowledges the value of using social media in building meaningful relationships, clients, communities, employees and other stakeholders. Within the 3 formula, the company has outlined several guidelines that each employee should follow when engaging in social media communication. An employee is supposed to fill a Telstra accreditation form for social media after going through specific process to be allowed to represent the company in social media (The 3Rpolicy, 2011). When the employee is authorized to communicate on behalf of Telstra, the employee is supposed to disclose that identity in the unit they work for. However, when the employee is not representing the company, the policies require that he keeps the communication personal and should avoid mentioning their position in the company and he units they work for. These exist among other policies that underpin employee’s online behavior. The issue of the employee holding a fake Stephen Conroy account is however, complicated and is not described anywhere in the 3R policies. The company may thereby find difficulties putting such employee to judgment basing on the outlined. The employee may easily be declared as not guilty. The fact however, remains that the actions of the employee attracted negative attention and tainted the reputation of the company. Due to this, the company needs to adjust its online policies such accommodate such like irresponsible actions that may occur at personal levels but still impact on the company’s reputation. Reference Brady, F. N. (1996). Ethical universals in international business. Berlin [u.a.: Springer. Noor, A.-D. H. S., & Hendricks, J. A. (2012). Social media: Usage and impact. Lanham, Md: Lexington Books. Sims, R. R. (2002). Managing organizational behavior. Westport CT: Greenwood Press. Social Media - Telstra’s 3 Rs of Social Media Engagement (2011). T company policy. Retrieved from http://www.walteradamson.com/TELSTRA-social- media-company-policy_final_150409.pdf The 3Rpolicy (2011).Retrieved from http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/telstra_3r_policy Wankel, C., Marovich, M., & Stanaityte, J. (2010). Cutting-edge social media approaches to business education: Teaching with LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Second Life, and blogs. Charlotte, N.C: Information Age Pub. Read More