Digital disruption is today's reality. Even in the relatively new field of corporate responsibility (CR) and sustainability digital and social media are forcing companies to make a 360-degree turn and revamp their communications, marketing, supply chain operations, and basically every part of the business. Why? Because digital has penetrated our personal and professional lives at every level, making direct two-way communications between consumers and brands possible anywhere, anytime. This, in turn, has resulted in increased customer expectations for brands to shift to an experience-based, consumer-centric approach to sustainability in digital channels.

A recent survey sheds some light on the rise of social media for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability.

The Lundquist CSR Online Awards Survey examines how experts in corporate responsibility, sustainability professionals and other stakeholders engage with companies. It also analyses how well Europe's top 100 companies respond to stakeholder needs with their corporate websites and associated digital presence.

Over 350 CSR experts and sustainability professionals from 44 countries have contributed, allowing to develop a clearer picture of the trends and user expectations about the use of social media for sustainability communications and stakeholder engagement.

Social media for business sustainability is going mainstream. That's what the latest Social Media Sustainability Index found. But how did that happen? And most importantly why? What is the potential of social media for sustainability communications and how does it add real business value? Read along to find out, I am about to enlighten you, or more precisely, a dear friend of mine is about to do so.

One year ago I had the pleasure of having a Google+ Hangout with the most enthusiastic person I know – Julie Urlaub.

Julie kindly agreed to participate in an interview with me as part of my research for my second BA dissertation that was also published as a book.

Julie is a true pioneer when it comes to social media for sustainability. She lives and breathes it and she is extremely passionate about her work.

She is Founder and Managing Director of Taiga Company – a sustainability and social media consulting firm specialising in sustainable storytelling. Julie is also the author of The Business Sustainability Handbook.

She not only understands the potential of social media for sustainability, but also successfully advises clients how to make best use of it and encourages people around the world to adopt a greener lifestyle.

The social media world is moving so fast that we can barely keep up. Social networks are constantly introducing new features, improvements of existing features or even completely new designs (Facebook and Twitter). Keeping up with that pace and being in line with the latest change is a serious challenge for any person using social media for business or communications purposes.

Remember the social media cheat sheet I posted in January? Well, it's no longer relevant or correct. And that's just after 5 months. Nevertheless, I believe such infographics are extremely useful, which is why when I stumbled upon an updated and enhanced version yesterday I thought I had to share it with you.

Below you'll find an extensive infographic with all image dimensions for Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and YouTube. The visual also offers guidance on the characters length for various posts, titles and descriptions as well as Facebook ads.

This is pretty neat to hang on the wall or save on your desktop and look for reference whenever you need a specific image or text parameter.

We all know what blogging is, but have you heard of vlogging – the abbreviation for video blogging? When was the last time you watched a tutorial on YouTube, for example a video explaining how to make a trendy hairstyle or how to build a website? We have all seen such videos, so even if you didn't know the term (and now you do), I'm sure you have experienced a vlog (i.e. video blog).

Vlogging - advanced blogging

What this means is that there are many people out there who, instead of writing long pieces and publishing in text format on a blog, create interactive video content on private YouTube channels, aiming at adding value for subscribers and not readers.

Among PR professionals these people are known as vloggers (i.e. video bloggers), or as they prefer to call themselves YouTubers.

Especially in the beauty industry YouTubers have become extremely influential making a pretty nice living only via vlogging. Sounds interesting? It sure is and this is what we are about to explore.

We all know about the many opportunities and substantial value social media provides for communications, marketing and for business overall, at least you should if you've been following my blog. What's still a grey area though is the adoption or rather acceptance of social media by the highest hierarchical level (if we can call it that way) in an organisation - the C-Suite.

One of the very fundamental things about social media is that conversations happen all the time, no matter whether you are listening, participating or ignoring them. This means that even if senior management is not following or engaging on platforms such Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram etc. people are still talking and are by driving the conversation about the brand. Those conversations are often so powerful that they even manage to shape the brand's story and significantly influence corporate reputation. Isn't that a reason enough for CEOs to join the conversation and share their voices?

Apparently, for many it is not.