The Corporate Muzzle

High-ranking executives need to understand how social media can help handle a company’s reputation and, conversely, damage its reputation. More importantly, this new understanding must also be effectively communicated to all employees. When is comes to divulging company secrets or exposing internal issues a company must possess stringent and visible guidelines for handling social media.

On October 31st, the Virgin Atlantic airlines fired 13 of its cabin crew who had posted critical comments about its safety standards and some of its passengers on a Facebook forum. They joked that the cabins were infested with cockroaches and regarded some of the passengers as “chavs," a British term for people with flashy bad taste.

Attacking these customers online is a public-relations disaster that raises questions of whether Virgin Atlantic had done enough to educate staff about acceptable use of the internet.

Businesses that learn to harness the proper use of social media externally and internally can thwart competitors who lack the necessary understanding. Businesses failing to understand in invest in social media risk extinction.

The rise of Facebook and other social media like MySpace and Twitter make it all the more important to reiterate online guidelines frequently, because, as mentioned before, these social media can amplify the effects of rumors and negative press.