CSR and

SOCIAL MEDIA

An Inevitable Partnership

“Using a sample of 12,915 U.S. firm-year observations from 1992 to 2007, we find that firms with a better CSR score exhibit lower cost of equity capital after controlling for other firm- specific determinants as well as industry and year fixed effects. Moreover, we find that CSR investment in improving responsible employee relations, environmental policies, and product strategies substantially contributes to reducing firms’ cost of equity.”*

* Does Corporate Social Responsibility Affect the Cost of Capital? Ghoul, Guedhami, Kwok, Mishra, 2010

A Twitter Eye View of the World

What is the social web?

It’s not technology . . .

connecting creating writing posting sharing expressing customizing hacking mashing-up customizing linking reading browsing copying pasting reconnecting re-using rating recreating empowering socializing organizing reviewing editing joining collaborating tagging watching publishing community participating buying entertaining commenting researching self expressing helping volunteering organizing listening

It’s what people do with technology . . .

The social web is about people coming together in community spaces online to

participate in creating, managing and sharing content through conversation.

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Engagement is the difference

Fundamental shift in thinking

Communications and marketing theory has been based on idea that the people we want to reach are an

audience . . . BUT people don’t only consume media now – they are part of it.

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“But the use of a social technology is much less determined by the tool itself: when we use a network, the most important asset we get is access to one another. We want to be connected to one another, a desire that the social surrogate of television deflects, but one that our use of social media actually engages.”

Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

New types of behavior

• CONNECTING: People connect to each other and create networks for business and private life– LinkedIn, Xing, Facebook

• SHARING: People share things; interesting stories, opinions, personal info, documents, links– Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Blogs

• CONTENT CREATION: People participate in content creation; personal info, videos, texts, photos, comments– Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter

• PARTICIPATION: People participate in discussions, movements, groups, events• Blogs, online media websites, web discussion forums

65 (22.5 percent) of 287 companies surveyed have social media communications dedicated to sustainability and CSR issues

55, (19 percent) of the 287 companies rely on their general social media channels to talk about sustainability.

167 (58 percent) of the 287 companies have no social media conduit for discussing sustainability.

1. Major benefit of sustainable behaviour . . . inspiring trust 2. Trust . . . the bedrock of good interaction, whether

corporate, personal or national 3. Sustainability revolves around transparency and

accountability . . . typifies trusting relationships

. . . Social media can help build trust

2006 Vancity launches what is thought to be the first CSR social community

2007 Justmeans starts in the basement of a brownstone in Harlem

2008 Timberland creates a CSR home online and seeks comments on its targets through ‘Voice of Challenge’ dialogues

Shift in activism

Potent activism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPty-ZLbJt0

Potent activism for social web citizens

Using music, art and technology to educate youth

about democracy.

Integration of information about financial and nonfinancial performance in a single document. ‘Nonfinancial’ . . .

information typically provided in a company's CSR or sustainability report regarding its performance in environmental, social, and governance terms.”