Ethical Guidelines Should Corporations Follow When Using Social Media Marketing

The problem with unethical practices is that a company itself is not the only one will suffer from the consequence of its illegal actions. Most of the time, there are customers who get victimized by these unethical practices as they put their trust and loyalty on businesses that they have patronized for so long. At the end of the day, all they can do is file their complaints and vent out their frustrations over the betrayal they experienced from their trusted businesses, but the damage remains permanent. The once excellent relationships are forever destroyed and victimized customers always carry with them the trauma and fear that they could be fooled again in the future.

Appears that anywhere you look today you will find someone using social media. With advertisements and commercials even billboards Social Media appears to be anywhere you look. Social Media is such a big thing today, according to study provided by the website Socialnomics, individuals devote 700 billion minutes every month on Facebook (statisticbrain.com). Social Media has now become so much better for advertising that it is changing how business is done.

Another corporation that operated unethically was Ford Motor Company with the production of the Ford Pinto. To compete with international competition and achieve Lee’s goal of producing the Pinto within a small time frame led to designing and manufacturing flaws. This resulted in a fuel tank design that would put the Pinto in a combustible situation should rear end accidents penetrate the poorly designed fuel tank. Realizing the design malfunction and deciding how to fix the fuel tank

Over the last decade, headlines have told stories of unethical behavior from corporations such as Enron, Worldcom, Boeing, Xerox, and Rite Aid. As business continued to grow, so has the laws and regulations that govern corporations to make sure they continue to practices their business legally and ethically. Rules and regulations are made because of the unethical practices that corporations have made due to greed and power.

Social media has become an essential channel for corporations to build a two-way relationship with their customers. However, having a social media account cannot solve everything. To make the best use of social media in keeping a positive relationship with their customers, corporations ought to seek and maintain influence among their followers in social media, and participate in communications with them.

Business ethics since the beginning of this decade has been slowly eroding; if we are to believe what we see and hear in the media. Several times a day, one can view some derogatory piece of information concerning a business. However, it must also be considered that these companies are contributing to that stigma. There have been a variety of companies and individuals who have figured prominently in the media concerning their unethical behavior.

There is a fine line between what is ethically right or wrong with an action committed by an organization. According to Audi, “sometimes ethics is compromised without dishonesty but by deficiencies in clarity or candor or both” (Audi, 2009). Being dishonest and not telling the entire truth are examples of ethical dilemmas.

The way that individuals and businesses communicate and interact has radically changed. With the development of technology and the internet, people can connect almost instantaneously and with very little effort. Social media has come to play a huge part in the way that the world communicates with each other. In fact, a recent report shows that in a single month people spend over 25 hours on social networks (“The Digital Consumer”). With consumers committing that much time to social media sites, social networking has become an important aspect of everyday life for individuals—and businesses. Like most marketing activities, social media marketing poses some risk. However, it is advantageous for businesses to exploit this opportunity, and develop an effective and ethical marketing strategy that includes using social media as a marketing tool.

2. Ethical Issues in Business. It seems that every day in the news we are hearing of new company that has acted at least unethically and possibly illegally in the operation and financial reporting of their company's business dealings. There are many ethical issues in business. One major issue that we see is over and under reporting net income. Companies like to show that every quarter the net income of the business has an increase or profit. In order to show this they adopt unethical or illegal means in the operation and financial reporting. One such method is the indiscriminate use of stock options for employees that enable companies to take employment costs off balance sheet and inflate earnings. With the recent ethical issues we have

Social media in business continually rises to be an in important tool in everyday business and this means that communication is greatly evolving. In this development period, social media has had a prodfound impact on businesses especially in marketing. As a result, many are using social media as a communication tool regardless of the negative impacts experienced in some aspcts of social media.

The use of social media has a very wide variety of advantages and disadvantages for companies. In essence it’s an extremely cheap way to reach consumers, and help them develop a brand perception. Companies can use it to hit a wide audience, and show them about a new product, or deal going on. They can also use social media to develop conversations with their consumers. This can positively shape thoughts and ideas about the brand. Also companies can use analytic services figure out the demographics of who is interested in their

The marketing industry is an elaborate network that links companies to their consumers, primarily through written communication. The main objective of marketing is to identify trends and patterns in consumer behavior, and utilize the data to influence consumers to purchase more goods. From a macroenviroment standpoint, the general conditions of a market are heavily dependent on global environmental factors. The most significant factor that influences the markets today is technological advancements. Since the release of Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter, and Myspace in the early 2000s, the number of people using social media has increased to over sixty-five percent. The ever-growing dependency on social media platforms, has given marketers the tremendous opportunity to further market potential consumers. Social media marketing is a specific form of marketing that focuses on producing ad content that social media users will post on their own networks. This particular marketing technique is effective because ads and content are created, based on what personal information users post on social media. Firms and organizations that advertise their brands on social media are more likely to increase their customer base and annual revenue. By doing so, companies are able to increase exposure of their brand and widen previous hidden, customer bases. As a marketer, the fine line between right and wrong is often blurred. The amount and

The company should take the knowledge of the top social media tools among their audience and make every effort to engage with its audience on these

Understanding the impact social media has had on the business world is particularly important for the younger generation, those teenagers and twenty-somethings who are most likely to post something that may come back to haunt them in years to come. As college students, we must realize that our future can be made or broken by something we consider trivial. For all those concerned with their professional reputation, responsible use of all social media is imperative. In the opinions

People are increasingly sharing their lives online through social networking sites with little concern for who may be viewing their information. This has become an issue in current times and is up for debate based on the ethical issues associated with Social Media. People don’t realize joining a social network is like joining a community. As any community in real life, your business has a place in the community but should not invade one’s privacy. Social networking is one of the most popular methods apart from forum marketing that is available to Internet users today. Places like MySpace and Facebook among others have gone from just social interaction spaces to a part time marketing program as