In the second of a series on social media, Jonathan Ballantine reports on the growth, development and opportunities of social networking

 

In the second of a series on social media, Jonathan Ballantine reports on the growth, development and opportunities of social networking
This is part two of a four part series. For part one click here.

According to Ofcom’s sixth annual Communications Market Report, growth in social networking is slowing down slightly.

Facebook cemented its position as the most used site, growing by 73% since May 2008 to reach a monthly unique audience of 19 million, compared to five million for MySpace and four million for Bebo. But new services are still growing fast: Twitter now has 2.6 million unique users, up from 150,000 in May 2009.

Social networking is maturing. Use grew fastest among 35-54 year-olds, up by eight percentage points since Q1 2008 to 35%. Among 25-34 year-olds, use grew by six percentage points to 46%, but it actually fell slightly among 15-24 year-olds by five percentage points to 50%.

Blogging

According to technorati, corporate bloggers comprise 12% of the active blogosphere. Blogging, it seems, is no longer optional. A blog is a next-generation website, and the foundation of your social media strategy. An effective blog enables you to have a two-way conversation with stakeholders: the cornerstone of genuine stakeholder engagement.

A CSR blog represents an attempt to connect with people about responsibility issues in a more personalised and interactive way than corporate reports, press releases and TV commercials.

In preparation for this feature, I investigated how many CSR blogs exist and found a few that could provide valuable insight for those considering launching their own.

CSR@Intel was launched in 2007. The blog was created by their director of corporate responsibility at the time, Dave Stangis. Two others of note are from McDonald’s and Sun. McDonald’s Open for Discussion was launched in 2006 by Bob Langert, director of CSR. Sun’s blog is called Innovation + Responsibility, and helps keep Sun employees up-to-date on CSR matters. This public blog is managed by Marcy Scott Lynn, director of CSR at Sun, who claims that the blog helps her to communicate a vision to Sun employees as well as provide transparency for stakeholder groups.

Just like other, traditional forms of stakeholder management, a blog should be used as a genuine attempt to help in the identification, development and implementation of solutions. The more that corporations use CSR blogs as another vehicle to promote their message, the less successful they will be.

Getting heard, building and engaging a community

As social media and social networking become ubiquitous and automated sign-ups for subscriptions for friends increases, social media technologies face the danger of becoming less relevant to participants: not because of motivation, but because of time. If you have 10,000 twitter followers, how likely is it that you will have the time to read every responsive tweet: increasingly low. This becomes the central paradox to business: the more successful the blog/tweet in soliciting comment, the greater the challenge to provide personalised responses.

In his book, Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging, John Cass provides an effective solution. Cass writes about the right approach to conducting engagement by using blogs. Rather than pitching people, he suggests that companies should encourage their employees to engage community members through blogs. “Read other people's blogs, and write content that speaks to the person who wrote a post, rather than just try to prove a point on a blog post, or sell their own ideas or products,” he remarks.

Both John Cass and Seth Godin (an entrepreneur and agent of change) highlight the importance of building real relationships. The major problem of the internet is the sheer number of sites, tools and platforms that produce what Godin calls “fake networking”. It is important to avoid the temptation of being seduced by the volume of social media: the majority of users will click, join or follow anything. This distinction is crucial. Being followed or having a high number of friends is meaningless if there is no active exchange between the two parties.

Engagement is created (and maintained) with “engaging” content or by creating a “meaningful exchange”. Organisations need to go out of their way to earn the privilege.

A change of tone…

I've been captivated with the idea of ongoing dialogues that help create genuine stakeholder engagement, and examining the nexus with social media.

Much of social media/blogging resembles a new style of communicating, where contributors are writing about their responses and reaction to facts: subjective writing instead of objective. Many bloggers attempt to be objective but also express their opinion. Yet, with blogging, the subject and writer are one and the same.

It could serve CSR/communications/PRs to embrace this changing style in communications and tell a story about corporate achievements. Stories are easier to follow and relate to than pure facts. Ask yourself how many CSR reports create an interesting narrative rather than an exercise in self-congratulation.

Many CSR practitioners see the long-term potential for social media as a complementary tool for CSR communications, particularly around engagement, community building and reporting. As to the what, who, where and how will always depend on the issue and/or stakeholder. “Some topics/issues are complex and may lend themselves better to a series of in-person or on the phone conversations,” comments Fallender.

Organisations that integrate the use of social media with traditional channels within their overall CSR communications strategy will be best placed to respond at the right time, using the right channel and with the right content.

Look who’s engaged

It can be argued that those companies without a social media presence find themselves in the scarce minority. According to one US survey by Wetpaint/Altimeter, despite the economic downturn companies perceive social media as an indispensable marketing tool.

The study is interesting as it tries to measure the financial value of social media, based on the top 100 brands. The surprising conclusion from this study found that these brands are experiencing a direct correlation between financial performance and deep social media engagement, and concludes that “socially engaged companies are in fact more financially successful”.

This highly useful report gives a good insight into how major companies are engaging with their customers and communities using social media, and lists the top 10 brands in terms of engagement as being:

1. Starbucks
2. Dell
3. eBay
4. Google
5. Microsoft
6. Thomson Reuters
7. Nike
8. Amazon
9. SAP
10. Intel

What is interesting is that the top 10 includes seven IT/internet businesses, plus one – Thomson Reuters – that relies heavily on technology to distribute its products, and two others in Starbucks and Nike that, respectively, would like to be seen as the preferred source of beverages and footwear for Generations X and Y. Is social media more suitable for all consumer or technology organisations?

This is part two of a four part series. For part one click here.

For part three click here

For part four click here

Jonathan Ballantine is a European-based communications specialist. He advises leading businesses, NGOs and professional service firms on CR and sustainability issues. jonathanballantine@mac.com



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