Social Media for Strategic Communication Chapter one

Chapter one of Social Media for Strategic Communication Karen Freburg’s new book is all about the ethical and legal fundamentals of social media, she covers things like the deadly sins of social media, she gives examples of branding mishaps of the past, and touches on a bunch of social media policies.

Karen starts the book off by explaining how she got her start in social media and how it was not what she had imagined herself doing if she would have been asked ten years ago however it has worked out in her favor and she very much enjoys it. Once she’s done with all of her introduction she begins to discuss how it is one important to understand the platforms you’re using but two it is also very important to understand that there are legal and ethical implications to everything you think, say, like, comment and post on social media. Karen puts a big emphasis on this and i think it’s a good thing that she does. I think that folks use social media as something to hide behind and often say things on social media that they would not say to someone directly, and no there is nothing illegal about that however anyone with and type of ethical code knows that that is wrong.  

Next she delves into the deadly sins of social media; these are, misappropriation, abandonment, manipulation, ignorance, monotony, narcissism, along with bullying, not giving credit where credit is due, oversharing, automation, and going rogue. Karen showed an example of a person going rogue and oversharing as they were being fired from the HMV marketing team. Evidently the marketing team were the only ones with access to the social media accounts and when the company went to go fire several dozen employees they took to social media to get the word out about their situation.

Next is the legal fundamentals, and these have to do with the media platforms rules and regulations as well as the rights given to us as people. Issues like free speech, copyrights, cyber bullying, endorsements and more are all covered in the latter portion of chapter one.

The last subject that Karen covers in this chapter is the manufacturing of one's own social media policy, it can cover everything in social media and is specific to the person that made it. This personal policy can be used to ensure safe usage and effective communication throughout different social media platforms.