Ethical Challenges in Social Media

Social media application have proven to be an effective way for companies to stay in constant interaction with current and potential customers.  Social media tools usage has grown extremely fast in the past ten to fifteen years leading to quick exposure of many firms and industries.  The scope and speed of social media creates information that is available almost instantaneously at a global scale.  Social media has created a synergy between personal and business lives of users as companies make use of social media for personal reasons and vice versa.  Due to its ongoing opportunities and vast potential, social media has created various ethical challenges.  Ethics is a very serious matter in any organization and any ethical misdemeanor can lead to loss of sales and customers as well as expensive lawsuits. 

Social Media Policy

Social media is a forever growing and changing environment that has become a part of almost every individual's daily life.  Just think about your daily life, how many times a day do you use social media.  I know personally I am on social media for different reasons at least once a day.  Even though social media is an integral part of life, privacy is still a major concern for all involved.  How do you create privacy in a public arena?  That is the question for the years to come.

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How do you create privacy in a public arena?

Social Media: Message, Reputation, and Privacy

In the world of business, social media applications are taking a larger and larger role in the day-to-day function of the organizations that use them.  Ten years ago, the concept of a “social media” specific employee was unheard of; today unpaid internships in this arena are common place.  While the speed and reach of social media outlets are unmatched in the world of advertisements ability to reach demographics there are detractors to the social media market that can adversely affect a business.  There are several concerns that should be addressed by the company when using social media sites, concerns such as what the social media policy should be when using the sites, how to manage the online reputation of the company, how to protect the privacy of the company, the employees, and the visitors to the sites, and other ethical considerations that may arise.

Why Organizations Need a Social Media Policy and Employees Need Training

“A Manpower survey of 34,400 organizations worldwide found that only 20 percent (of those organizations) have a social media policy.  ScanSafe, an online security company that provides a website blocking service to thousands of global corporations, found that 76 percent of its clients block social media sites.  9% of organizations have fired employees for using social media at work.  21% of organizations with more than 1000 employees have disciplined employees for using social media at work.  This shows that there clearly is a need for a social media policy at all organizations.  These statistics show that corporations are more interested in keeping their employees away from social media than allowing them to use social media.  When employees use social media it can be a benefit to the organization if it is used right.” (Lim & Heinrichs, 2011-05-30)

All Play, No Work

While social media has become a useful tool for current organizations to use as a means of advertisement and consumer research it has its negative side effects as well.  Social media has caused employees’ productivity to decrease as many spend valuable hours on social media sites while they are on the job.  Finding a way to manage and control the amount of time employees spend has become one of the biggest challenges facing the organization today.  Without proper policies or tactics in place, organizations can be wasting their money on employee salaries without getting the full benefit out of their dollars.  While many companies have decided to ban social media websites on company computers, this has actually proven to not be a valid solution.  The purpose of this blog is going to be to explain how organizations can make sure that their employees are spending more time working, than they are surfing social media websites.