Experience has shown us that social responsibility strategies based on top-down communication are only successful when they cooperate with all stakeholders concerned.
NGOs and whistle-blowers have come to realise that an inclusive approach is a far better communication technique for bringing about change than a marketing position built behind closed doors.
To develop, present and implement such a strategy, the need for a rich exchange with both internal and external stakeholders of the company is widely acknowledged.
Co-developed strategies, as opposed to unilateral proposals, are now recognised as the most effective approach to guarantee results. They allow for a deepening of the traditional function of communication. Going further than the mere act of sharing information, they can become a source of innovation and development that foster the emergence of a community centred around the company.
A key requirement in the CSR approach is for the company to engage in rich conversations with all its stakeholders. The use of social media in this case is clearly a no brainer: through them, the company can communicate its objectives and achievements, but above all, it can establish a community that nurtures and lends support to its strategy.
The numbers speak for themselves. 85% of consumers declare that they can accept that a company does not entirely have its act together as long as they feel the company is being honest in what it says about its efforts to change or improve. This exchange about what the company intends to do is at the top of ‘the pyramid of expectations’. Yet only 29% trust company discourse (compared to 69% in 2004)!
Meanwhile social media is used by 68% of the French population, and 28 million of these are active on Facebook. Whatever credibility building there is to do, social media have become the place for companies to communicate on CSR.
While the public is bombarded by advertising to which it remains largely passive, a person spends about 1hr 29 min a day on social media, with 59 min on smartphones, and has a clear engagement - in marked contrast with other types of media.
The CONE Communication / ECHO 2013 study shows that consumers want more engagement with the company they buy from: 78% state that if given the chance, they would actually share their opinion about companies’ social impact. In the last 12 months, 32% say they have acted on this.
Strategies developed with external instead of just internal stakeholders also have a much longer-term impact due to the role the community plays in the development of the company. The fact of participating makes them more supportive and tolerant towards the company.
The question today is not whether a company will undertake a CSR project, but what impact this project will have. Social media can help to find out the best way to go about this.
Social media are transforming corporate social responsibility
Citizens interact more and more with brands through social media. In an age where almost everything is available online, consumers can confidently expect to find an answer to any questions they have on social networks. Yet if the response does not come from a representative of the company, it is only a matter of minutes before its reputation can be tarnished.
Activism has also made citizen participation a priority and certainly uses social media as a key weapon to influence change. Recent public opinion crises have demonstrated the strength these campaigns can have. Greenpeace’s work against Nestle or VAG are good examples of the potential impact of well-oiled social media networks.
These are obvious examples of why it is so important to be on top of social media developments. A company with a social media strategy will be able to detect upcoming trends as well, and therefore be in a position to head off major crises.
Recently La Redoute defused a crisis by anticipating the “bad buzz” one of its pictures might stir up. A naked man could be seen pictured in the background of a photo showing clothes for kids: instead of trying to counter a crisis that was already full blown, the company spoke directly to the complaining communities, encouraging them to look for other mistakes, playing with humour by adding images, for instance of dinosaurs, in various places. What was originally a crisis rapidly ended up playing in favour of La Redoute as the community went viral about the positive nature of the steps taken by the company.
Unfortunately this type of approach is underused in our country.
France is the second country after the UK where the proportion of consumers looking to interact with brands on their social engagement is the weakest (46%, as opposed to 90% in China, 89% in India and 85% in Brazil). This is thought to be due to the fact that social duties in France are largely seen by the public as being one of the functions of the state. Yet more and more of us engage online, following this global trend. Change.org has shown an ever-increasing membership over the past two years, going from 30 million in 2013 (a million in France) to more than 70 million in 2014 (3.8 million in France). Social networks are indeed no longer only used to share news with family and friends, but also to promote, defend, federate, denounce, or put more simply: to act.
This shortfall between consumers’ expectations and companies’ efforts to interact with them also exists on an international level: out of the 475 companies surveyed by the “Social Media Sustainability Index” of Sustainly in 2013, only 233 showed their CSR efforts on social media (though there has been considerable progression since 2011).
What next?
Each company has its own identity. However, major recently emerged trends prompt the following recommendations:
1. Companies should give priority to surrounding themselves with a community of quality
Having a million fans on Facebook is no use if the message doesn’t get through in the right way. For this, time must be taken to recruit the right audience. Too often, unfortunately, the strategy for reaching out on social media is not taken seriously enough, despite the fact that such communication is even more important when it comes to CSR issues - an area where company exposure to public opinion is significant.
Recommendation: Entrust this task to specialists who know how to work with social media.
2. Identify key opinion leaders
CSR deals with themes that will have been identified, discussed and developed by prominent opinion formers. Their opinion matters, and you must have them on your side, especially as they will have many followers who will form their own opinion of your company based on their comments.
Recommendation: Distinguish between this type of actor (what we call KOL - Key Opinion Leaders: bloggers, journalists, whistle-blowers, etc.) and consumers, and adapt your strategy.
3. Speak about something other than just yourself
A page focusing on the efforts the company has made to arrive at this CSR position is of no interest to the community. What matters is where the company now positions itself in the wider CSR discussion, and its impact. There is nothing better to transform the image of a company than to have external actors commenting on its impact. The impact of the Aviva Impact Investing fund, for instance, was what strengthened its profile as a major CSR actor.
Recommendation: Get your company referenced by external actors on wider issues; it will encourage the community to be more attentive and supportive.
4. Use internal resources
CSR strategies often start from internal motivation; it is also a strong incentive. Your teams are your deeper and most powerful media.
Recommendation: Ensure your employees are your best ambassadors, on social networks as IRL.
5. Carefully select your social networks
It is counter-productive to be everywhere. Each network is different and has a different purpose. For instance, Twitter is an excellent means to engage opinion formers, and spot hot topics and trends, as well as to communicate in times of crisis; Facebookreaches out to a very large audience, and is more suitable for video and picture contents, giving a nice field to grow your responsibility's storytelling… The likes ofLinkedIn are places where the quality of the content matter at a moment in time, for specific "technical" opinion leaders, Youtube plays around with ‘the direct environment of the content’ and affiliates your content with relevant topics…
Recommendation: Your distinctive CSR goal will need a very specific strategy targeting the right network at the right time. What do your stakeholders look at?
To sum up
Developing CSR projects, while being a worthwhile and humble aim, is also a major source of risk. In no other way does a company expose itself to that extent to criticism and hostility.
Yet solutions exist, and this risk can actually present firms with a great opportunity. As companies are compelled to be more socially responsible, the only way they can convincingly show they are getting on with the programme is by engaging with the way the public communicates in this day and age.
Social media provides firms with a unique opportunity to mitigate and forestall risks in addition to advancing their objectives.
But… the right strategy must be devised, and that requires this issue being definitively taken on board by communication teams everywhere.