Essay Sample on Good Etiquette on Social Media

Introduction

Social media is an online channel that enables users to share information and network with other people. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram are some social media channels used widely across the globe. Social media connects people from different backgrounds and with distinct behaviors, goals, culture, languages, age, gender and class. A majority of these people use social media to interact, share information, meet new people, and express their feelings. Organizations also use social media to market their products and services, interact with customers and potential customers as well as advertise their products and services. Many of the people using social media do not know each other but have common interests. Despite the freedom of sharing content and interacting with anyone on social media, several ethical rules govern the use of social networks to ensure users exercise etiquette. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of having good etiquette in social media. Good social media etiquette is crucial to individual and organization's social media users as it helps them avoid insulting, disrespecting, breaching confidentiality, offending, and breaking the law.

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Diversity and Interactions in the World of Social Media

Exercising etiquette when using social media is critical as it helps to develop strong relationships with other people. Facebook , Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn allow individuals to meet new people who end up being their online friends. Social media facilitates one's communication, interaction, and sharing of materials with online friends. However, when sharing videos, messages or pictures on social media, it is important to consider the positive and negative implications of the social media content to other social media users (Reeves, Jason et al. 63). Individuals should ensure that their texts, videos or images do not spread hatred or ridicule people from a certain religion, race or ethnic groups. In addition, social media users should ensure their content does not devalue or disrespect their online audience. Considering the effects of the content before posting it cultivates ethical and trustworthiness perceptions in the minds of other social network users thus strengthening relationships.

Demonstrating Respect and Decorum on Social Media

Good etiquette on social media helps individuals to demonstrate respect to other social media users. Individuals show respect to others by posting and sharing information, videos, and images that do not degrade, abuse or offend the message recipients. Decorum compels social media users to filter their comments and posts to ensure they play the intended purpose without disrespecting people (Rowlings). For instance, a person may write a tweet that criticizes the leadership policies of US President, Donald Trump without disrespecting him by avoiding using abusive, sarcastic and disparaging words on their tweet. Moreover, exercising courtesy and polite mannerisms is important as it boosts peaceful coexistence between coworkers in the workplace. Etiquette allows employees to use organizations' Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube among other social media channels to share messages, videos, and images that are respectful to their colleagues and bosses. Good decorum on organization's social media is also essential in developing trust and communication among employees. A workplace that has trust and courtesy among its employees during face-to-face and social media conversations has high collaboration among its members of staff (Baxter 2).

Safeguarding Reputations and Preventing Legal Violations

Social media decorum is also important in safeguarding the reputation of an organization. In the contemporary digital world, firms are using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and blogs to market and advertise their products and services, recruit workers as well as communicate with loyal and potential customers (Baxter 1). The nature of messages, videos, audios, and images posted on organizations' social media channels determine the perceptions that outsiders and customers have towards the organization. When the messages posted on a firm's social media are disrespectful to the culture, religion, and ethics of the customers and society, the organization gains a bad reputation. The bad image has adverse effects on the business as people may stop consuming products and services from the organization as they may think the company does not value, care, and respect them. Therefore, the firms must adopt social media policies that would guide their employees when posting content on their personal and organization's social media channel (Reeves, Jason et al. 64). The policies should ensure that employees post messages that show respect and care for everyone within and outside the company.

Demonstrating etiquette on social media is paramount in preventing individuals from violating the law and the social networking ethical rules. It is worth noting that people use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube to post inflammatory statements and personal attacks towards other individuals or companies. These insults may amount to defamation. The law is against defamation acts orchestrated through face-to-face conversations or through social media. For instance, practicing social media etiquette would prevent a person from violating the defamation law by posting false information about Apple Technologies, which may spoil its reputation. American Speak Hearing Association (ASHA) research shows that trademark and infringement laws also prohibit using the image of another person on social media for product or service promotion without seeking their consent. This may result in lawsuits which may cost the culprits huge amount of money in damages (Reeves, Jason et al. 64). To avoid violating the infringement rights or trademark laws, individuals and organizations must demonstrate etiquette when posting materials related to a firm or an individual (ASHA).

Empathy and Sensitivity: Nurturing Positive Digital Spaces

Social network etiquette also helps social media users to empathize with the feelings and emotions of their audience as well as other social media users. It is worth noting that people on social media are sensitive and emotional to contents posted about them. People will react to falsified information about them or their company, personal attacks or inflammatory messages towards them or their group (ASHA). Thus, individuals using social media must have good decorum to empathize with the painful feelings that a person may experience after someone posts negative information about them. Social media users, who empathize with other users, post positive and constructive contents on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram among others. For instance, a person exercising social media etiquette cannot post the HIV/AIDS status of their friends because they know and empathize with the emotional and psychological effects the post may have on the HIV positive sick individual.

The Practice of etiquette on social media is an important intervention for making social network channels a better place for meeting new people, acquiring customers, advertising, marketing as well as interacting with other people. In the contemporary world, many people are using social media platforms to harass and bully other individuals. Social media bullying is rampant in the modern world and it has adverse emotional and psychological effects on the victims (Kowalski and Gary 91). Furthermore, people are using social media as a platform to express their negative opinions and feelings towards their bosses, spouses, and job without considering the emotional and psychological effects of sharing such information to the victims and other social media users. In addition, several people use social media to abuse and convey personal attacks to people they dislike. Notably, if social media users exercise decorum, empathy, and courtesy when posting contents on social network channels, social media will be a habitable place for all.

Organization's employees must have etiquette in order to maintain the confidentiality of organizational data (Rowlings). Individuals in contemporary workplaces are active on social media and may share sensitive information about their companies with friends on social media intentionally or unintentionally. Disclosure of sensitive organization's information may make a firm vulnerable to attacks by their competitors or fraudsters (Kowalski and Gary 91). Hence, organizations must ensure their social media policies encourage people to practice caution and etiquette when sharing any information related to the company. Sharing organization's confidential information may result in dismissal of the individual.

Conclusion

Good social media etiquette is an essential quality that both individuals and organizations using social media ought to have. Social media decorum ensures that people share information, videos, pictures, and audios that do not offend, attack, disrespect or devalue other social media users. Practicing good etiquette when using social media channels helps individuals to avoid getting into conflicts with other people, violating the different laws and infringement regulations and boosts their ability to empathize with other people in their circle of interaction. Social media etiquette is paramount to organizations as it prevents their employees to share confidential information about the company and post content that would ruin the reputation of the company. Good etiquette also allows firms to show respect towards the society by posting content that does not collide with cultural and religious beliefs of the community. Therefore, individuals and organizations should exercise etiquette when posting content on social media in order to make social media channels a better place for everyone.

Works Cited

"Ethical Use Of Social Media". Asha.Org, 2018, https://www.asha.org/Practice/ethics/Ethical-Use-of-Social-Media/. Accessed 28 Nov 2018.

Baxter, Gavin. "Social media in organizations." The international encyclopedia of digital communication and society (2015): 1-7.

Kowalski, Robin M., and Gary W. Giumetti. "Wall posts and tweets and blogs, oh my! A look at cyber bullying via social media." Social networking as a criminal enterprise (2014): 91-110.

Reeves, Jason et al. Safe And Responsible Use Of Social Media. 2015,https://www.cieem.net/data/files/Resource_Library/In_Practice/CIEEM_IP90_Dec2015_SocialMedia.pdf. Accessed 28 Nov 2018.

Rowlings, Malcolm. "Social Media Etiquette: 5 Practices For New Hires - Enveritas Group". Enveritas Group, 2016, https://enveritasgroup.com/campfire/social-media-etiquette/. Accessed 28 Nov 2018.