Perry Goldschein - Sustainability Strategy, Communications & Marketing

Sign Up For
Conscious Clicks

Our free monthly newsletter for news, analysis and marketing tips!



Yes, I want to receive Conscious Clicks
> Privacy Policy

CONSCIOUS CLICKS - The Blog

News and analysis on sustainability, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder engagement, and Internet and other digital marketing and communications. You'll even get some very practical tips on these topics that you can put to immediate use!

January 25th, 2010

Haiti Disaster Reveals Social Media as Double-edged Sword

Thanks to the influence of social media, marketers rapidly raised millions of dollars of relief aid – cash and in-kind donations — to earthquake-torn Haiti, which is still reeling from a second quake that hit last week.
As celebrity-packed telethons were launched and Ad Council spots ran 24/7 in support of relief efforts, big brands such as Coca-Cola, Kraft, Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, among many others launched fundraising campaigns via traditional marketing as well as with microsites, Twitter and Facebook. But for some brands, using social media as part of a quick-response CSR tactic was a double-edged sword as this Advertising Age articles notes [http://adage.com/article?article_id=141553]. As companies worked to do good a fog of misinformation arose as quickly as one could tweet.
The story also explains how timing of an initiative worked against AT&T, for example. The telecom giant was first to allow users to text in donations. But because the response by AT&T was so swift, many people missed it. As competitors joined in with similar campaigns, AT&T appeared to be behind the curve. Stepped-up messaging helped fix the problem in the end, and AT&T raised millions in relief aid. All in all, it was revealed that social media tools such as Twitter can be a powerful part of a CSR strategy. In the Advertising Age article, a UPS spokesperson notes that the company was glad to have a social media strategy in place where they were able to effectively communicate with its consumers.
From a sustainability communications perspective, the lessons here reveal the need to have ongoing stakeholder engagement. A steady stream of dialogue with clients, customers, partners and other stakeholders would likely keep clear any misinformation surrounding a company’s good deeds.
For example, stakeholders who are gently reminded of a company’s ongoing CSR and sustainability work through a communications effort that is imbedded in a company’s DNA would likely know that when disaster strikes, the socially responsible company would do the right thing. In fact, stakeholders might even anticipate a company’s good deed as soon as the news hits. So when an initiative is launched, expectations and clarity of intent are already set, allowing for a successful campaign.
For social media specifically, there’s already a desire by stakeholders to be a part of the dialogue. According to a survey of new media users in a 2009 Cone Consumer New Media Study (conducted by Opinion Research Corp.), 44 percent of those polled are searching, sharing or discussing the CSR efforts of companies. For companies who don’t use social media and other communication tools as part of an overall CSR strategy it’s not too late to get started.

By SDialogue Staff

Thanks to the influence of social media, marketers rapidly raised millions of dollars of relief aid – cash and in-kind donations — to earthquake-torn Haiti, which is still reeling from a second quake that hit last week. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by perry
Permanent Link -  No Comments »

October 22nd, 2009

Social Media for Sustainability

I attended the Social Media for Sustainability conference organized by Justmeans in San Francisco on Monday. Along with hundreds of others who attended, I was excited to see a conference so laser-like in its focus on the intersection of two topics our firm seems to be addressing on a daily basis now.

The conference was designed to help answer such questions as: How should your company using social media to engage your customers, employees, activists, and other stakeholders online?  What are the best tools and platforms? How do you develop the right incentives for building community and keeping your community engaged? What is the ROI of social media and what metrics should your company be using?

While the conference didn’t answer all of these questions, many great insights were provided by both panelists and audience members from companies like Intel, Cisco, Nike and Disney, as well as Seventh Generation, Treehugger.com and TriplePundit.com.

Some major takeaways included:

  • Empowered by social media, customers, employees, activists, and other stakeholders are demanding far more from companies than ever before — with the power to affect and even define brands (e.g., United Breaks Guitars is closing in on 6 million views)
  • Social media helps co-create great ideas (e.g., MyStarbucks Idea)
  • Your brand is being discussed, whether or not you are part of the conversation — Google it, YouTube it, Twitter it and see for yourself (we’ve tried to stress this with clients ourselves — at the least, you should be “listening” in on the conversation with basic tools)
  • Sustainable brand leaders like Seventh Generation and Timberland are moving away from annual sustainability reports and towards more real-time storytelling and data — they’re looking for meaningful conversations (we’ve been helping clients with this type of activity for a while)
  • Leading brands are starting to crowd-source their efforts around sustainability
  • “‘Open companies are already performing some 30% more profitably than closed companies” (Dwayne Spradin, Innocentive) — “we” are smarter than “me”; but this requires a different mindset and culture than traditional or closed innovation — “culture eats strategy for lunch”
  • @katbaloo A good overview of Social Media Listening and Monitoring Tools as you think about tracking ROI: http://bit.ly/VBlmY

What’s been your experience with social media and sustainability?  Let us know!  More commentary at Twitter, of course (#justmeans).

Posted by perry
Permanent Link -  No Comments »

February 12th, 2009

Twitter Here, There & Everywhere

Twitter suddenly seems all over the news. It’s come a long way from the micro-blogging service whose attraction many of us wondered about not long ago — who cared what your friend/colleague/sister was eating at her office cafeteria now?

There are at least a couple of good reasons for that.

First, Twitter allows communicating online to potentially large audiences easier than ever before (or forces it to be easier, depending upon your perspective). That’s because no special technical skills are required to post to your Twitter page, just like none are required for more typical blog services. But, unlike other blogs, you have only 140 characters to communicate.

While I understand the premise for the quote “I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter,” attributable to Mark Twain or Blaise Pascal, depending on your source, I have not found it attributable to Twitter. Instead, Twitter has given me and millions of others permission to post snippets of information, rather than paragraphs, without looking less professional or knowledgeable (necessarily). This means I can share almost anything, including links to valuable information online, a lot more quickly than if I felt I had to elaborate with my own brilliant spin on that information, or risk being seen as dull or less informed.

Second, organizations are figuring out how to make Twitter a useful tool for such things as marketing, collaboration and customer service. Not bad for a free tool. For example, Airlines have found some of their customers like flight updates via Twitter (which can be received by mobile text). And Dell attributed over $1 million in sales due to specials announced on Twitter last December.

So, expect to see and hear more about Twitter as the year progresses. Try it out and think about ways you and your organization may be able to put it to use. Please visit my Twitter profile and join me there for lots of other great tips and information!

Posted by perry
Permanent Link -  No Comments »



RSS Subscribe to our Blog

Add to Technorati Favorites

Bookmark and Share

  • Blogroll

    • Archives

    Popular Tags

    Social Media