Instagram And Ethical Considerations

The brief for this article was to analyse the ethical considerations of the platform in context to my role as Social Media Manager for Instagram. This included audience interactions, public image, and strengths and weaknesses of the platform regarding the wider industry.

milk is an outward facing professional publication associated with a university. Therefore, the manner in which its social platforms conducted themselves needed to be one of positivity, respect and professionality. All interactions, visuals and opinions are public. Disrespectful behaviour could tarnish the reputation of both milk and the university for students to come. As Social Media Manager for Instagram, I felt responsible for ensuring this did not happen.

My approach to interacting with the audience was to remain anonymous in the third person, maintain the voice and language of the magazine, and stay polite in the face of rudeness. An example of this situation can be seen below, where I responded to negativity with a firm yet courteous attitude. I felt the student audience would appreciate this subtle humour, taking inspiration from the response of social media accounts such as Tesco Mobile and Tesco.

Evidence of social media responses.

Advice from marketing and customer service consultant, Jay Baer, suggests to never respond to trolls more than twice (Baer, 2016). I took this on board. My responses to positive comments can be seen below. In these situations, I wanted the audience to feel like valued members of the milk community. I made sure I thanked them for their support, answered their queries in a timely manner and addressed them by name when possible. I feel this assisted in establishing a community for the magazine as the audience felt welcomed to interact.

Evidence of social media responses.

It should also be noted that there is a need to promote real life over fake, curated life on visual social platforms such as Instagram. Although this consideration has little relevance in regards to milk, publications and businesses alike have a duty to protect vulnerable audiences, particularly young people, from living through a filtered lens. Recent changes in media law also holds social media managers liable for hosting harmful content (Hurst, 2019).

Pros of Instagram

• Able to interact on a global scale.

• Can link to other social platforms.

• Hashtags and location tags personalise content.

Cons of Instagram

• Presence of digital trolls.

• Little control over disrespectful users interacting with public accounts.

• Easy to steal content without image rights.

Bibliography

Baer, J. (2016) Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers Happy. United States of America: Portfolio.

Hurst, G. (2019) Social media bosses face arrest for hosting harmful content. Available at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/social-media-bosses-face-arrest-for-hosting-harmful-content-gtxs7tvtk (Accessed: 23 April 2019).