Q11-9 How Do Businesses Manage the Risks of Social Media? Flashcards
Why is social media risky for businesses?
Social media exposes businesses to risks such as management challenges, employee communication issues, and user-generated content.
What are the three significant management risks associated with social media?
Underestimation of labor costs.
Absence of dependable return on investment (ROI).
Customer privacy concerns.
Why is estimating labor costs for social media difficult?
Social media technologies are new, and there are few established guidelines to estimate the time required for effective use.
What is ROI, and how is it calculated?
ROI (Return on Investment) is the percentage of return earned on an investment. It is calculated as:
ROI = (Return / Investment) × 100%.
Why is it challenging to measure ROI for social media ventures?
While social media metrics like likes and retweets are easy to track, their relationship to financial outcomes is often unclear, imprecise, or inconsistent.
What is customer privacy, and why is it a risk in social media?
Customer privacy involves the proper collection and processing of personal data.
Misuse of personal data can erode trust, posing a significant risk for social media usage.
What is one common example of employee communication risks in social media?
Professional athletes posting embarrassing or inappropriate tweets, which can lead to public relations issues for sports franchises.
How can organizations limit employee communication risks on social media?
By developing and publicizing a social media policy that outlines employees’ rights and responsibilities.
What is a social media policy?
A statement that sets out employees’ rights and responsibilities, helping businesses control and limit behavior in a medium with few inherent controls.
What are the three key attributes of a good social media policy?
Disclose: Be timely, transparent, truthful, and yourself.
Protect: Don’t tell secrets, slam competitors, or overshare.
Use Common Sense: Add value, stay calm, and be quick to correct mistakes.
What are the four guidelines under the “Disclose” attribute of a social media policy?
Be timely by specifying a response time goal.
Be transparent by using your real name and employer.
Be truthful and disclose any vested interests.
Be yourself and stick to your expertise.
What are the three rules under the “Protect” attribute of a social media policy?
Don’t tell secrets.
Don’t slam the competition.
Don’t overshare.
What are the three best practices under “Use Common Sense” in a social media policy?
Add value by making contributions worthwhile.
Keep it cool and avoid inflaming or responding to every criticism.
Be “flawsome” by being upfront and quick with corrections.
Why is setting a target response time important in social media policies?
Customers expect timely responses. Over half of Twitter users expect a reply within an hour for customer service issues, and over half of Facebook users expect a response within 24 hours.
What are user-generated content risks in social media?
User-generated content can be inappropriate, excessively negative, or problematic, such as troll behavior, negative reviews, or false statements.
What are the major sources of user-generated content problems?
Junk and crackpot contributions.
Erroneous contributions (false statements or fake news).
Unfavorable reviews.
Mutinous movements.
What are “junk and crackpot contributions”?
Content focused on unrelated or extreme topics (e.g., UFOs, conspiracy theories). Such material requires monitoring and immediate removal.
How should businesses handle “erroneous contributions”?
Differentiate between innocent errors and serious false statements, using judgment and experience to address misinformation.
Why are unfavorable reviews a significant risk for organizations?
They highlight disadvantages of a product or service, which customers evaluate to determine importance for their needs.
What is a mutinous movement in social media?
When prosumers (producer-consumers) revolt and misuse an organization’s site in damaging ways, such as hijacking a Facebook page to build public support against the organization.
What is the first task in managing user-generated content risks?
Identifying potential problem sources and monitoring sites for problematic content.
What should organizations do once problematic content is identified?
Develop a clear plan to address and respond to the content appropriately.
What are the three possible actions an organization can take when dealing with problematic content?
Leave it.
Respond to it.
Delete it.
When should problematic content be left alone?
If it represents reasonable criticism of the organization’s products or services, leaving it alone shows the site allows legitimate user content, not just promotional material.
What are the risks of responding to problematic content?
If the response is patronizing or insulting, it can enrage the user community and generate backlash.
Responding should be done carefully and only in specific cases.
When is it appropriate to respond to problematic content?
When the problematic content has prompted the organization to do something positive.
Responses should be reasonable and non-defensive.
What is the danger of continuing to respond to unreasonable content?
Continued responses can escalate the issue.
As the saying goes, “Never wrestle with a pig; you’ll get dirty and only the pig will enjoy it.”
When should content be deleted?
Only when the content is inappropriate, contributed by trolls or crackpots, irrelevant to the site, or obscene.
Deleting legitimate negative comments should be avoided.
Why is deleting legitimate negative comments risky?
It can lead to strong user backlash and make the organization appear arrogant or heavy-handed.
