Social Media
Introduction
The introduction of social media and their positive response has currently sparked a lot of interest among various businesses. The platform, which has been used for social interactions, is changing as firms find opportunity to market their products and services. The drive behind this increased interest in this mode of advertisement is due to high number of audiences that they can make correspondence with. Various social media platforms provide social interactions among people across the world. They include, MySpace, LinkedIn, facebook, twitter, flickr, YouTube, dig among others. For the purpose of this paper, the focus is on facebook as one of the social media that many business people are using to market their businesses.
Question 1
Marketing manager who use facebook to reach their customers must be able to put into consideration various legal astute in order to avoid breaching the law and acting in an unethical manner. The four components that such managers need to put into consideration are attitudinal components, proactive approach, have the ability to exercises informed judgment and lastly poses context specific knowledge of the various relevant laws and understand how the various legal tools are applied and apply (Constance, 1993). Considering all these will help the marketing managers to operate well and achieve their objectives without being asked any question.
The first component is attitudinal. The managers must understand and recognize the importance of law to the success of the firm as it establishes the rules that the managers will need to use in providing their services. Even as managers strive to create value of their business and firms they are required to ensure that they appreciate the important of moral values to be able to meet the society’s expectations by agitating for appropriate behaviors and treating their stakeholders in a fair manner. Therefore, in using facebook to advertise and market their products, marketing managers have the responsibilities of ensuring that they promote moral values and always put the concerns of their stakeholders before any other. Failing to do this may amount to breach of laws.
The second component is proactive. Marketing managers should not view laws as constraints towards attainment of their objectives but rather they should aspire to react and leave or comply with such laws to enable them continue with their operations without any problem (Constance, 1993). Therefore, the marketing managers should take the fore step in regulating the way they use the facebook to avoid any onerous regulations by the government by taking an advantage of the innovations opportunities presented. Face book is a very innovative opportunity that marketing managers can use to market their products because many people use the platform. Therefore, they need to abide by the stipulated laws set on usage of the platform to avoid coming into conflict with the law.
The third is the judgment component. Sometimes it requires the exercise of informed judgment in dealing with legal aspects because; they vary from one situation to another. A marketing manager using facebook to transact business will encounter problems that require informed judgment to solve a problem. Dealing with customers on social media may turn out to be somehow tricky and therefore in such occasions the marketing managers will be obliged to use informed judgment to make a decision.
The last component is knowledge. Social marketing should aspire to acquire training and knowledge on the operations and functioning of various laws relating to conducting business on the social media (Constance, 1993). Managers that understand the language of law will be in a better position to understand various functioning and application of laws and this will enhance their communication and even dispute resolution skills. Some of the legal tools that the managers need to understand to be able to conduct marketing appropriate include contract laws and laws pertaining to doing business on the internet. Having knowledge in legal and application of legal tools will help the marketing manager to solve any disputes that arises between the organization and the customers and/or the platform owners.
Question 2
Apart from courts other alternative dispute resolution are also available and can be used to solve disputes that results from consumers that make purchases from business providing links via social media. These alternative methods include mediation, negotiation, arbitration board and dispute inquiry board. In mediation, every aggrieved party will look for a mediator that will help to solve the disputes. The mediators will have to engage in collective bargaining to find an appropriate solution that will ensure that both parties are satisfied with the decision. Negotiation is yet another way of solving a dispute (Priest & Klein, 1984). The firm can enter into negotiations with the aggrieved party and find an amicable solution. The cause of a dispute may be misinformation or something that arose due to misunderstanding and which can be easily be resolved. Arbitration board can also be used to solve the dispute. Arbitration is binding and the two parties in the disputes will have to agree to whichever the decisions that the arbitrator will make. This can help to resolve the disputes that may happen between the firm and the customer. Dispute inquiry board can also be used to solve such disputes. Minister establishes this board in case a party in dispute needs neutral third party assistance to resolve their disputes. This can also help to solve the disputes between the firm and the customers.
Question 3
Social media transactions cut across borders and states. These transactions however can be controlled through various ways. Some of the ways that the federal government can use to control these transactions is to use the service providers, these service providers should not provide their service to those people that contravene the policy established. Another way is to ensure that social media user use their certificate (Taubman, 1998). They must sign their certificate, which can be traced before using the internet. This will help people avoid using the platform in a wrong way. Other way is to issue higher penalties and arrests for people that use the platform in a wrong way. The most recent ways that the government can use is block internet protocol address; filter uniform resource locator, and DNS, use packet filtering and connection reset to ensure that such sites are not accessible. Blocking of IP addresses and filtering URL and packets blocks the user’s from accessing the websites and therefore making it impossible for them to use services of the social media. The communication on the server is normally interrupted deterring smooth transmission of data.
Question 4
The three branches of government in USA include the president of the United States, the legislative and the judicial. All these branches are independence from each other and perform their duties without any interference from others. The president is the one who enforces the laws that are passed. The legislature consists of the congress and the House of Representatives. The congress is one, which makes the laws, and the judiciary is the third branch that consists of the Supreme Court and 9 judges. They interpret the laws according to the constitution, hear cases and provide rulings (Wood, 1998). Therefore, the branch that mostly suited to regulate on the transactions that are done on the social media is the legislature. This branch makes the laws and amends such laws before they are taken to the present for enforcement. Any law that that is enforced must be debated, discussed, and then passed by the two-third of the congress members. Therefore, they legislature plays a pivotal role in regulating any issues pertaining to social media.
Question 5
An agency relationship normally exists between that social media provider and the business that utilizes the site for advertising. The site owners receive royalty from the advertisers and therefore, the firms that use the site for their advertisement must sign agreement with the site owner for them to be able to advertise trough the site. Therefore, the relationship is based on mutual benefits. The firms benefits from the many audiences that are on facebook and the site owners also benefits from the contributions that they receive from the advertisers. Therefore, the agency relationship is that of mutual benefit.
Reference list
Constance, B. (1993). ‘Winning legally: The value of legal astuteness,’ Constance E. Bagley; Harvard Business School Soldiers Field, Boston. Retrieved from: http://mba.yale.edu/faculty/pdf/bagley_winningLegally_12_17_07.pdf
Taubman, G. (1998). A not-so world wide web: the Internet, China, and the challenges to non- democratic rule, Political Communication, 15: 255–272.
Priest, G., & Klein. B. (1984). The selection of disputes for litigation, Journal of Legal Studies, 13: 1-55.
Wood, G. (1998). The creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg.
