Sustainability: business, life, environment

Social media provides individuals, communities, businesses, and non-government organizations the ability to connect with business in meaningful discussion from anywhere in the world in real time.   However, according to the recent study, Business Pain: Social Media Proliferation Propels Corporations Toward Uncontrollable Risk, " brands have jumped into the social space at a dizzying pace, incorporating social media into traditional business processes including marketing, sales, customer support, product development, and beyond. Yet adoption has occurred haphazardly, with little control or quality assurance.  

There are challenges to effectively and clearly communicating the business sustainability message internal and external to the organization.  With sustainability concepts and definitions still subject to interpretation and debate, the ‘active’ engagement and dialog with stakeholders cannot be overlooked when building effective business sustainability programs and communication plan.   

As we've discussed in a previous post, Key Components of Social Media for Stakeholder Engagement, there is an emerging role of social media for stakeholder engagement and for businesses to communicate their broader corporate responsibility agenda.  With preferences shifting as to how we communicate and exchange information, social media is becoming the transparent, engaging, competitive advantage that business sustainability delivers.   However, to effectively harness the power of social media to create business sustainability value, what are the key components for success?   

Therein lies the very secret to social media - How do you define success?  What does success look like and how do you measure it?  For many, success may be determined by selling a product or service.  For others, it is about advancing the businesses sustainability conversation - whether that is in regards to their own products/ services or the conversation as a whole.  Proactive businesses are leveraging both definitions of success and the key components to winning strategies include: 

• Defining a clear vision of what social media is expected to do for your organization.  What are your social media goals?  Increase website/ blog traffic? Enhance brand image and credibility? Communicate and engage on CSR/ sustainability related topics? 
• Identify stakeholders and online communities.  Stakeholders are a bit easier to identify, but online communities can be centered theme based and centered on sustainability concepts such as recycling, CSR, water, energy, social investing.  Or, they may be geographically based.
• Actively engage.  Social media is an always on platform.  This implies being present to the ongoing conversation: listening, contributing to the conversation, providing timely feedback, and incorporating that information into products, services, and ongoing dialog.

The days of the controlled and scripted press release may be coming to an end.  The propagation of sustainable information to effectively communicate business sustainability successes is becoming a more active dialog.  Our sustainability consulting encourages businesses to provide even greater transparency into the implementation of sustainability concepts and open the conversation to business stakeholders through social media.