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Hello Social Marketing, bye-bye traditional Marketing ! The use of social media in business have grew tremendously over the years with over 93% of marketers use them for business according to statistics by (Fast Company, 2013). Some of the advantages of social marketing are stated HERE
The statistics below shows the impact social media has towards businesses.
Source: http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/the-2012-state-of-inbound-marketing-webinar
While social media is not the silver
bullet that some pundits claim it to
be, it is an extremely important
& relatively low cost touch point
that has a direct impact on sales
& positive word of mouth.
By: JOSH MENDELSOHN
VICE PRESIDENT
CHADWICK MARTIN BAILEY
This shows how social media can plays a huge role in getting more customers on board through word of mouth and getting new customers beyond what is restricted in the originate country.
As such, it is important for the company to conduct themselves well in the online world for the sake of their reputation. As much as word of mouth can bring in customers, it can also creates negative image of the company. The benefits of a good corporate reputation can be found HERE.
Using social media in a responsible way.
According to (Institute of Business Ethics, 2011), Companies should devise policies to educate their employees on personal social media habits, including refraining from posting job-related stuffs or words that can damage the company’s reputation. Administrators managing the social account of the company should be advised on the correct behavior on the site. The policy should be aware by everybody in the company and reviewed regularly based on feedback.
Blogging4Jobs gives many examples of employee being fired over ‘inappropriate’ comments on social media.
Employers role is to keep employees happy by taking their feedback seriously and take action. A disgruntled employee can do harm to the company by vending their frustrations online.
(CSID.com) provides a few tips companies can adopt to mitigate the concern on using social media carelessly.
- Consider requiring that employees make separate personal and professional accounts. (Multiple online identities)
- Require that social media passwords must be different from work logins. Employees should not reuse work emails and passwords for personal sites.
- Make sure that the corporate social media accounts are the most popular. In this way customers and other consumers may recognize the organization’s statements as reflective of corporate conscious.
- Offer social media training that increases their information literacy, and allows them to understand that actions (or speech) have consequences.
Customers often likes to post comments on the company social media sites if they met with bad experience companies have to be careful in their response to avoid further aggravation. The matter can go out of proportion if not handled well. This incident in Singapore involving Starbucks is interesting as the company is bold in defending its staff amid complaints by the students. The approach by Starbucks did not drew criticism but applause from many people.
Story can be found HERE.
While we are given the freedom of speech in the online world, we must be aware of the dire consequences we could have create due to our ‘carelessness’ in our messages that me misinterpret as ‘inappropriate’. Some companies actually monitor their employees social media movement. which comes into another question, is this ethical for employers to do that?
References
120 Awesome Marketing Stats, Chart and Graphs. (2014). 1st ed. [ebook] p.55. Available at: http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/53/blog/docs/ebooks/120-marketing-stats-charts-and-graphs.pdf [Accessed 5 Dec. 2014].
Cooper, B. and Cooper, B. (2013). 10 Surprising Social Media Statistics That Will Make You Rethink Your Social Strategy. [online] Fast Company. Available at: http://www.fastcompany.com/3021749/work-smart/10-surprising-social-media-statistics-that-will-make-you-rethink-your-social-stra [Accessed 5 Dec. 2014].
Csid.com, (2014). Employee Social Media Use Can Affect Small Business Reputation. [online] Available at: http://www.csid.com/2014/06/employee-social-media-use-can-affect-small-business-reputation/ [Accessed 5 Dec. 2014].
Harrison, K. (2014). Corporate Reputation :: Why a good corporate reputation is important to your organization. [online] Cuttingedgepr.com. Available at: http://www.cuttingedgepr.com/articles/corprep_important.asp [Accessed 5 Dec. 2014].
Slideshare.net, (2014). The 2012 State of Inbound Marketing Webinar. [online] Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/the-2012-state-of-inbound-marketing-webinar [Accessed 5 Dec. 2014].
Socialmediaworks.com, (2014). Social Media Marketing – Traditional Marketing | Social Media Works. [online] Available at: http://www.socialmediaworks.com/news-tools-tips/social-media-marketing-tips/ [Accessed 5 Dec. 2014].
The Ethical Challenges of Social Media. (2014). 1st ed. [ebook] Institute of Business Ethics. Available at: http://www.ibe.org.uk/userassets/briefings/ibe_briefing_22_the_ethical_challenges_of_social_media.pdf [Accessed 5 Dec. 2014].
yiming@ SotonMANG2049 
Hi Yi Ming!
Your post is really insightful especially since we’re all studying a marketing degree that’s skewed towards digital.
To answer your cliff hanging question of how ethical it is for employers to check on employees using social media:
In my opinion, it would depend greatly on the situation. It is definitely unethical to check up on employees with the sole purpose of finding fault. It’s socially and morally incorrect. However, if my employee was naive enough to write something derogatory on, let’s say, twitter and customers or I find it. I would have to take action. Don’t you agree?
I would like to reflect your question back at you. Do you think it is ethical for employers to stalk their employees on social media?
Cheers!
Van
Hi Vanessa,
I think it it right for you to say it depends on the situation. I would say it is unethical to be looking at employee OWN PERSONAL social media to find fault because it is their freedom to say whatever they want and bear the responsibility if it spreads out. At the other end, to check on potential employees before hiring seems logical enough for me as what ruhan have commented below.
That’s basically my views!
Hi Yi Ming,
I like the fact that your post is simple and straight to the main points.
As to the provoking question that you mentioned, I do have some thoughts. I would feel that it is appropriate to a certain extent for employers to check on the employee’s social media. After all, social media are public platforms where people are able to get to interact with people around the world. In the previous topic, we have found out that companies now have been checking on potential employees through their social media even before hiring them. Does it mean that they are unethical? I would not think so. The main purpose why people post things on their social media platform is to make it “viral” to the public. If someone do not want people to know, they would probably hand written it in their ‘diaries’ or make their online platform private. Do you agree?
Ruhuan.
Hi Ruhuan,
Yes, i would certainly agree to what you have said. As what i have mentioned in Vanessa reply, checking of employees social media to find fault is UNETHICAL because it is irrelevant but maybe not for employers who are hiring to know more of what kind of employees they are hiring because recruitment is expensive!
Hi Yiming!
Pretty insight post! It is pretty amazing to see the rate of which social marketing is growing. 93%?? I had always known that social marketing would make it mark in the business world but seeing the actual figures still astonishes me.
With the rise of social marketing, I do agree with you that it is crucial for companies to be aware and maintain their digital reputation and strive to portray a positive image in terms of advertising and interaction with their consumers. I particularly like the way that you separated this topic into the various categories (employer and consumers) and discuss about the various implications.
You also mentioned that we should be aware of the consequences of our activities on social media. I do agree that we should be aware of this aspect. However, to what extent do you think we should limit our views on social media? The social media platform was created with the intention to broaden the ways that one can connect with others. With that in mind, where do we draw the line between being brutally honest and being outward offensive?
I look forward for your thoughts on this! Loved the post!
Hi Evan,
I think the general rule of thumb should be not having messages that is racist, contains vulgarities, personal attack, etc. However i will say it is hard to tell if one message is offensive or not as we may not have the same view of what should be consider as ‘offensive’ messages. Do you agree?
Hey Yi Ming!
Yes indeed! I do agree that it is extremely hard to list out all the ways in which a message may appear offensive to others due to the vast differences in culture and social norms. At the end of the day, I guess we, as future marketers, have to be extremely aware of what we are going to say and understand how it affects everyone else.