Communicating CSR via Social Networks and Web 2.0
Emily Polk, Senior Editor, CSRwire

Web 2.0 is playing an increasingly vital role in the communication of corporate social responsibility initiatives. Although Wikipedia describes Web 2.0 as "the changing trends...that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the Web," most people first tend to think of it as interactive social networks like Facebook and YouTube.

CSRwire President Joe Sibilia credits the younger generation for the CSR push into social media.

"The younger generation relies on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, tribe, LinkedIn, blogs and personal e-mail lists to get information," Sibilia states. "The next generation wants to find information from their own sources and not only the company's. The Internet has changed the field of information."

Revital Bitan, a CSR manager at Intel, recently blogged about the potential for companies to increase dialogue among their employees and stakeholders with Web 2.0.  

"The use of Web 2.0 is positioned to turn intranet sites, especially those of large corporate giants, into a platform to give employees their say within an informal framework," writes Bitan. "At the same time, Web 2.0 is a valuable tool which can be used by corporations to inform their stakeholders about ongoing and upcoming CSR activities, thereby involving them in the bigger picture - making them real partners in the contribution to the community." 

Companies can utilize Web 2.0 capabilities to create a platform for those in the CSR community to engage in conversation. 

"Social networking serves the sender and the receiver as a way to promote transparency and accountability," says Terence Washington, manager of CSRwire's social media outreach. "One aspect that everybody shares is that we are all looking for the truth and a lot of people engaged in social networking will call each other out. It's a great way to hold each other accountable." 

In difficult economic times, raising brand value through increased transparency is becoming a big priority for many corporations. According to a recent CSRwire blog from Max Gladwell, "A company's story need not be the exclusive domain of the communications department. Marketing and customer service can benefit immensely, and the C-suite can go a long way toward humanizing a company through corporate blogging....which can generate significant upside in the form of brand equity, product development, research data and much more. When it comes to implementing, however, there is one guiding principle: transparency. Without it, social media and sustainability not only won't be effective, they'll typically blow up in your face."

Andrew Zolli, Pop!Tech's curator, says that the three fastest-growing contributors to brand value today are perceptions of ethical leadership, perceptions of social stewardship and perceptions of environmental stewardship. 

"Brands are the most important intangible, and in fact the most valuable intangible asset that most large-scale corporations, multinationals, own today," says Zolli. "That's because 25 years ago we would ask what the environmental policy, the labor policy, the human rights policy of government is. Now we ask what the environmental, labor, and human rights policy is of companies like Nike, Coca-Cola, Disney, Microsoft, et cetera."

What that has done, according to Zolli, is shift the dynamics of brands away from being purely communicative to increasingly behavioral. 

"For most of these companies it's not about what they say anymore; it's about what they do," Zolli declares. "The reason it's about what they do is because we can see what they do. We can see if there's a gap between their communications and their performance. The Web 2.0 revolution is only accelerating this trend. So what we have done is we have taken all of the behaviors of business, we've given individuals the ability to actually comment on and see - sort of mass verification of the behavioral dynamics, which are in turn driving brand dynamics."