Responsible Use of Social Media

People nowadays spend more time on social media sites than any other websites. The information that they post on these sites can be made available to other users even though there are some social sites that allow a user to choose the people who can see which information. The risk for this information to be spread out is always there because of the possibility that someone from the list of people, who can view this information, might share that information to other people that the user didn’t want to see. Therefore, it is imperative that a person, whether that person is a small business owner, a person responsible for marketing within a company, an executive or an employee, being a representative of an organization, must understand the importance of using social media responsibly. Otherwise, confidential information about an organization or company, which is intended only for a few people to see, might become available to others.

There are some companies, organizations and small businesses that had opened chat forums on their blogs or fan pages, and ended up finding themselves victim to people who just want to report a negative feedback about them. These feedbacks, whether if it is true or not, will have a negative effect on the organization’s public image and credibility.  There are also cases wherein an individual had released information, which are rather too personal or very undesirable, in a networking site which began to appear on search engines. The information which the user intended for just a specific person to see is now available to everyone. As we all know, there is no doubt that almost everything or anyone can now be found on the internet. The information is just a click away. When an internet user typed in a series of words in search for information, web crawlers look for the information or data that matches the keywords used from everything that is posted on the internet. The information that best matches the keywords will appear on the result page of the search engines.  It is very advisable for people not to put information anywhere on the internet if they don’t want others to see it because once it has been made available on the internet and other people have already seen it, more so, have shared it to other people, chances are, even if the user removed that information on the website where it was posted, the information may become available in other websites.

Business owners must see to it that their people who use social media have totally understood what the company or organization’s identity and brand is, as well as, the message that the organization want to convey to the public. This can be done by sending out information to the employee on how to change the settings of their social media accounts to make the personal information in their profile appear private.

If the organization has a discussion board or has blogs that allow other people to comment, it should be moderated so that only approved messages or comments will appear.  For fan pages in Facebook, comments must be restricted so that only the administrators can post on its wall.

Another thing that an organization can do to make their people know how to make use of social media effectively and responsibly is to educate. Let them know the things they should and should not post on their social media accounts as there are some people who might forget.

Responsible social media users always see to it that they think first before they click!