Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY PROPOSAL

Social Media Policy Proposal

AJ Caiola
AET/562
February 29, 2016
Dr. Sean Spear

SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY PROPOSAL

Social Media Policy Proposal

This proposal is submitted towards developing and creating a social media policy within
this organization. It is not suggested that social media accounts simply be created and put into
use without adequate training. These social media accounts that are meant to be the voice of the
organization should have clear cut guidelines as to their use.
Among the many questions that must be addressed in order for the policy to be clear cut
for all employees are the following. Why should guidelines for employee be set? Why should
employees about the content shared on social media? How might social media affect an
employee's reputation? How can the organization ensure responsible use of social media? How
employees affected by responsible use within an organization's social learning environment?
How will the use of social media help this organization's professional development environment?
Why Social Media is Useful
Social media has become a pervasive part of todays popular culture, and as a result
organizations are on the lookout for new ways to use it. Many companies use social media as a
way to connect to their customer base, but what is being proposed here is to use social media to
connect employees. Specifically, this policy will outline why it is important to connect
employees in an online social learning environment, using existing social media tools.
This is a useful goal so that employees can share information about such subjects as best
practices. New ideas, or simple instruction in how to use processes already in place within the
organization can be fostered by using social learning (Mbati, 2013). Social learning is also useful
for employees that do not work in the same geographical area. Potentially, employees that work
in the same job capacity at different geographic locations can share practices that will enable to
organization to be more efficient.

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How to use Social Media at this Organization

In order to establish a workable policy for the use of social media to aid in a learning
environment at the organization some questions need to be answered:

What is the importance of setting guidelines for employee use before social media tools are
launched within an organization?
Social media is in use almost everywhere, by almost everyone. The use of the top two
social media sites, Facebook and Twitter, account for over 1.4 billion user accounts (N. A.,
2016). It is important that employees understand that the use of social media during business
hours must be for business purposes. Without this understanding it is impossible to determine for
what purpose social media is being used and what effect the use of social media is having on
productivity.

Why should employees carefully consider the content they share within the social media
space?
The answer to this question is particularly important if the social learning is happening
with the participation of employees or experts that are outside of this organization. Employees
must consider that sharing posts or information with persons outside the organization may affect
the organizations reputation. Even when an employee makes a damaging post without the
knowledge of management persons outside the organization may correlate the post with the
organization, and not with the employee making the post. The outside person will often assume

SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY PROPOSAL

that if the employee of an organization posts something then the organization must have given
tacit approval.

How might social media tools affect an employee's online and in-person reputation?
In the same way that an errant post might have a negative effect upon the organization,
the same post may have a negative effect on the person making the post. Due to the nature of an
online learning environment participants may not know each other, or even get an opportunity to
meet. The only knowledge participants may have of each other is through the posts on social
media. Even if participants do know each other it is still possible to voice opinions that may not
be widely known, or could be considered offensive. This being the case, it is important that
participants keep their interactions professional.

How can an organization ensure accountability and responsible use of social media within
the workplace?
Perhaps the easiest way to ensure accountability and responsible use of social media is to
have a manager or mediator periodically audit the discussion threads. This is not meant to
suggest that a manager lead the learning environment, quite the opposite. Social learning works
as more of a freeform environment, a little direction to get a discussion moving and them let it
happen. If employees develop the impression that management is controlling the experience then
the learning environment becomes structured and hinders the flow of ideas. Management just
need to ensure that someone is checking to ensure that no one is wasting time with inappropriate
or unhelpful information. Over time the community will come to adopt appropriate behavior as
the norm and emulate it spontaneously.

SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY PROPOSAL

How is the individual employee affected by responsible use within an organization's social
learning environment?
When the social learning environment is used responsibly, and employees accept that the
tool is of use, the possibilities are nearly limitless. When staff use social learning in the manner
that is envisioned in this proposal then the can expand their knowledge and become more
efficient. Ideas and practices that exist in various areas throughout the organization can be shared
and put to use wherever the practices make sense, on the users own initiative, without direction
from management.

How will social media policy enhance the organization's professional development
environment?
Social learning will enhance the professional development environment by allowing the
free flow of information between employees. It is expected that social learning will have some
anticipated effects. These effects include allowing employees at different geographic sites to
communicate and employees in similar positions to communicate regardless of separation or colocation. These are useful, and needed effects in and of themselves. The reach and scope of
social learning, and the effect it will ultimately have on professional development, is almost
impossible to predict.
Management can, and should, steer the use of social learning in regard to professional
development, especially as the use of social learning is implemented. Management should

SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY PROPOSAL

continue to monitor and redirect as necessary, but the ultimate goal should be to allow the social
learning environment to become a self-sustaining tool.
Once the employees of the organization become used to using social media as a learning
tool they will see the utility of the technology. If they see the utility, and the benefit to
themselves, they will use the tool and the staff will become more knowledgeable and more
efficient.
Recommendations
First and foremost, the organization need to impress upon the staff how social learning
through the use of social media can benefit the staff. If the staff can see the personal benefit of
the technology then they are more likely to use it (Knowles, 1978). If they use it they will
exchange ideas and the overall efficiency of the organization can be improved.
Second, staff needs to understand the difference between making private posts to their
friends and family as opposed to professional posts. The poor online behavior of an employee,
especially one that can be easily identified as belonging to the organization, has the potential to
damage the reputations of both the employee and the organization.
Finally, management will have to commit to making the technology work for the
organization. As discussed, social learning in a perfect environment will eventually become selfsustaining, but this will not happen immediately. It will be necessary for management to steer,
and in some cases correct, the course the social learning environment takes (Salmon, Ross,
Pechenkina, & Chase, 2015). While the ultimate goal of the social learning environment for the
organization is to aid professional development it is possible, and even likely, that the
environment may develop in unanticipated directions. Some of these directions may be
beneficial in unforeseen ways and this process should be allowed to develop organically.

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7
Reference

Knowles, M. S. (1978). Andragogy: adult learning theory in perspective. College Review.

Winter 5: 9-20
Mbati, L. (2013). Online social media applications for constructivism and observational
learning. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 14(5)
N. A. (2016). Top 15 most popular social networking sites, February 2016. Ebizmba.com.
Retrieved from http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites
Salmon, G., Ross, B., Pechenkina, E., & Chase, A. (2015). The space for social media in
structured online learning. Research in Learning Technology, 23