Leveraging Social Media to Communicate Corporate Social Responsibility

John Kim — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:00:55 +0000

Recently, I had the opportunity to learn from leading industry peers at the Social Media and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) conference hosted by Just Means in London, England.

It was a full day of presentations by communications execs from organizations such as Unilever, Dell, Royal Dutch Shell, and SAP. CSR strategists from agencies like Futerra communications and retailers like Marks & Spencer described their journeys from stodgy brands your parents might remember to becoming leading brands in environmental advocacy. We also heard from one of the founders of Twestival, who organized real-life events from on-line Twitter communities in order to raise money for charitable causes.

One thing I learned is that the global CSR and social media community is tight knit and in constant communication, although we’re all still learning how to best leverage social media.

Here are some of my primary takeaways from the conference:

There are no rules, nor a tried-and true road map. So we need to be willing to try new things and not be afraid of mistakes.

Honesty and transparency are key components of social media and CSR. Whether it’s by making information available or offering CSR reports to the public, we can all gain from transparency.

Social media can help drive innovation (product and services). Dell shared its Idea Storm site to crowd-source product suggestions from which it brought more than 400 to market. And Reuters uses tools like SMS text to deliver information to an entirely new customer base.

There is no difference between internal and external audiences. Communicating to them like they’re people—instead of a particular type of audience—is key.

The press release should adapt to social media. “Social media press releases” provide information in more “bite-size” and “shareable” forms so that they can be easily distributed and shared by bloggers and on social media networks. The same should happen with CSR reports.

Social media platforms can be a good way to engage a global workforce. Providing frameworks for conversation, without trying to control it, can be a good way to get employees to communicate with the corporation and each other. It’s important to use tools that are accessible to all to ensure open communications channels.

Overall, it was great to connect with global peers and to learn about what other companies are doing as we continue to use social media to communicate how Herman Miller is working for a better world.

Social Networking—Frivolous, Powerful, Here to Stay

Christine MacLean — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:00:55 +0000

Social media tools like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can be frivolous or useful. Frivolous: More than 724,000 kids (my son included) are Facebook fans of “Don’t complain about grading 140 essays over the weekend, you assigned it.”

Powerful: 18,000 people bypass the hype-steria surrounding the H1N1 flu by following the Center for Disease Control on Twitter. The CDC provides factual updates as information becomes available.

For most people, social media lies between the two extremes.

According to Forrester Research, almost 60% of Internet users use social media. Other research shows that a third of social media users are quite active, updating their statuses at least once a week. Their reasons vary, but 54% say they do it to stay in touch with friends and family. Less than five percent report they “regularly” use it to make buying decisions.

That will likely change. Nielsen says global consumers spent more than five hours on social networking sites in December 2009. That’s an 82% increase over December 2008. With that kind of growth, more and more companies are using social networking. They see an opportunity to build their brands and strengthen their connection with customers.

Carnival Cruise helped an unhappy customer locate the t-shirts he thought the cruise line stole from him. They only way they knew he was unhappy about it was that he tweeted about it. But companies like more than just broadcasting via social media. In fact, for the individuals who actually tweet for a company, the best part is hearing from followers.

Herman Miller uses Facebook and Twitter to share good news (such as its inclusion on FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list), product information, and job openings, and to find out what’s on customers’minds.

What is on their minds? Sometimes it’s their chair’s warranty, but other times it’s a pet. Take the tweet from @stacyharmon: Apparently my cat finds my Aeron chair as comfortable as I do. http://post.ly/KL10. All of it helps “humanize the brand,” social media experts say.

Social media—especially Twitter, which doesn’t allow tweets to be longer than 140 characters—also forces companies to be clear, concise, and clever. That’s good news for consumers. If they don’t have us at hello, then we say buh-bye.

Photo via: Harmon Enterprises

Herman Miller blog: Discover » social media

Leveraging Social Media to Communicate Corporate Social Responsibility

Social Networking—Frivolous, Powerful, Here to Stay