It is true that by using social media, organizations that against bullying can reach and educate more people (especially teens) about bullying and its impacts in a shorter length of time. Not only organizations can reach more people, but they also can advertise their campaigns cheaper compared to other types of advertisement channels. Rather than printing a thousand of flyers, organizations can post one video in YouTube, and they can reach more people with that one video.

We also know that people have the freedom to express their opinions in the online world, and they have the choice whether to reveal their real identity or being an anonymous user. However, this has lead to what we called as Cyber-bullying on both personal and business front. In the recent news, “Two girls [was] charged after [a] 12-year-old, who was bullied, killed herself”. It is also believed that “[the girl] Brag[ed] on Facebook After Alleged Bullying Victim Commits Suicide”.

Yes! Organizations can use social media to educate teens about bullying; however, teens can also use social media in order to bully other teens. In fact, according to this article, “Cyberbullying is often a lot worse than bullying in the real world because the bullies can easily hide behind the anonymity offered by the Internet.”

So, how to manage social media bullying?

• Use your creativity to find an inventive way of laughing the attackers
• For businesses, it is important to monitor what your customers are saying about you, and respond the negative comments. Acknowledge your mistakes if necessary. Therefore, other customers will see that you care about them. To do so, we are required to apply the Social Media Triage, where we need to identify whether we should respond or not.

So, what do you think of cyber-bullying? Which side of the sword you think will outweigh the other?