Over the last few years two
This new social economy is based on engagement, relationships and mutual trust where relevance to the individual is a main currency for meaningful communications. Thus, innovation has become crucial for companies to reach, educate and inspire this new consumer about sustainability, but there is still both a need and a demand to raise sustainability awareness, break down silos and improve communications practices and knowledge management.
To analyse and explain social media’s impact on sustainability communications and offer practical guidance for companies interested in exploring these new opportunities I chose to examine the power of social media as a communications channel for creating business sustainability value for my second BA dissertation.
The main research objective was to discover whether social media can be a support tool or a menace for corporate sustainability.
I examined the importance and the current state of social media for sustainability communications and the opportunities and the risks of social media comms for creating business sustainability value.
As a result, I developed a best practice guide for utilising the power of social media and avoiding potential pitfalls, which you can see in the infographic at the end of this post.
After conducting comprehensive literature review and primary data collection through interviews with professionals in the field of sustainability and social media (whom I once again want to say “thank you”), I found that social media can indeed be a source of business sustainability value in a number of ways, for example as effective information sharing through storytelling; community building through enhanced stakeholder engagement; business idea development and implementation through co-operation and co-creation.
However, for social media to be an effective support tool companies are required to show ongoing commitment and follow the principles of the new social landscape – transparency, authenticity, community and relationships (also inherent to sustainability).
Otherwise, if organisations choose to ignore the nature of social media and use it to manipulate consumer awareness and behaviour, they are at risk of facing the menacing role of social media to damage or even destroy a brand.
Since people now have and, most importantly, make use of the new channels to express and distribute their opinions freely and reach mass audiences all over the globe, nothing can stay hidden on social media.
To offer you some more insights, here are the main conclusions of my research:
To enhance the present and preserve the future companies must play their role in educating society on the devastating risks of unsustainable behaviour and systems failure (e.g. serious loss of biodiversity) in order to mitigate them collaboratively.
The future generations are required to make better and more sustainable consumption choices, but the present generations need to set the grounds and facilitate the already gathered knowledge.
Education, though, starts with communication.
If society is not made aware of the issues and their extents, then solving them is not possible. As Galileo once said, “you cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself” – people cannot be forced or driven to agree or act in the way others want; people need to be gently and friendly led, inspired and engaged to change their minds. This is where the potential of social media lies because it is first and for most about people and relationships.
My research has shown that both social media and sustainability are paradigm shifts; the challenge is how to leverage them and do so in synchrony in order to create business value. Nevertheless, social media can and should be used as an essential tool for value creation in sustainable business. Therefore, the firm of the future should not only have sustainability as part of its DNA, but it should also embrace the power social media to transform and involve society to create a better future.
To offer professionals and companies more practical advice I chose to develop a best practice guide based on my research and the interviews I conducted. The guide is in the form of an infographic so that it can be easily shared online. This way I hope to reach as many people as possible and enhance the conversation about social media’s power for sustainability communications.
Please, feel free to embed and share these findings. I would also love to hear your comments and feedback. :)
PS: I am going to publish further parts of my research in the next months, so stay tuned!
(Click on the infographic for a larger view)
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