Social Media + CSR : sustaining a global effort

Social Media is about influence. That much we all gather.
Up to now, my posts were about corporate social media strategies, entrepreneurs’ do’s and don’ts, metrics and ROI … with the goal of putting forward brands — personal, businesses’ and corporate identity. In a nutshell, the final aim was to achieve business growth.

So if it’s about spending, how can it be leveraged towards responsible spending ?
I was recently contacted by a marketing Professor at Stanford, CA (yes, I swear) who was wondering if I could help her identify businesses leveraging social media for corporate social responsibility (CSR).

After researching a little, I found that where I live (ie Paris, France), a campaign is currently jointly being run by food and dairy products maker Danone and supermarket giant Carrefour. The two CAC40-listed companies are teaming up to help an association called Les Restos du coeur.

Les Restos du coeur (meaning restaurants with a/of the heart) has been providing food to the poorest populations in urban France for well over a decade. The idea this year is to leverage social media by asking people (like you, like me) to promote the campaign on their blogs: for each post, the sponsors donate 10 meals. So here we go, consider it done: thank you Carrefour and Danone for feeding 10 hungry people !

Watch the video of the campaign:

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Outside France, I’ve found this article on Mashable about 5 socially responsible corporate initiatives that were carried out by U.S. companies through social media.
As part of their corporate communication, Crate & Barrel, Target, Ford, Stonyfield Farms, and Pepsi have thus turned towards social good campaigns.
Pepsi’s generated the most buzz as the soda maker had shocked by reallocating a 20 mln usd budget from Super Bowl ads to social media.
Read the Mashable article HERE

And finally, as a reader on this blog, should you wish to do participate in the social good vibe, look just to the right … yes … that’s right, right over here   —>
You can help me help imporverished children get food. It’ll only take you a few minutes but it’ll do them a world of good.

Have a great sunday !

Measuring social media and ROI: just follow Michelle

Michelle is a student. And she has this really cool blog about social media and engaging in conversations digitally.

The other day, I launched a conversation on LinkedIn about the metrics and ROI of Social Media. Frankly, her video below is the best answer I will get.
Michelle, you rock !

Thank you Citizen L for pointing me to this !

Meet Citizen L, French digital player & influencer

Howdy !

Today, I’ve had the pleasure of talking to a French digital player and infuencer, Citizen L.

His personal profile is whooooshhhh… like lightning but without the thunder. Citizen L is rather discreet and modest.
So for people who think that EVERYTHING on digital influence originates from the U.S., take a few minutes to view the following presentation.

After Burston-Marsteller’s evidence-based presentation for early 2010, here comes another kind of report.
It’s fun, to the point… “pervasive” (a word Citizen L likes to use on a joking tone) and it’s his take on Social Media, in December 2009. Not outdated. Not a wrinkle. We’ll see about it in 3 more months though.

Enjoy:

Social Media Whats Going On December 2009

View more presentations from Laurent François.

How Fortune Global 100 Companies Use Social Media (Burson-Marsteller)

Burson-Marsteller’s Global Social Media Checkup 2010 is out.
It is a report on the state of Social Media use in the corporate world, based on the Fortune Global 100 list. Data was collected from 29 U.S., 48 European, 20 Asia-Pacific and 3 Latin American companies between November 2009 and January 2010. Accounts were considered “Active” if they had at least one post in the past 3 months.

Here’s an at-a-glance summary of what I see as the main findings:

TWITTER
Twitter is the most popular social media tool among Fortune Global 100 companies, with 65% having a presence on the social network. A whopping 82% of the active accounts have tweeted in the past week at a high volume of 27 tweets each on average. Geographically, 72% of U.S. companies have Twitter accounts, like 71% of their European counterparts.

Some 42% of global companies are being tweeted about. Particularly, 48% of U.S. companies are being tweeted about.
Companies are using social media as another channel to disseminate announcements and news and also for customer service purposes. Now they also engage in conversations with users and stakeholders. Thus, 38% of companies are responding to people’s tweets. About 32% are retweeting comments from others, particularly American companies (41%).
Companies are also taking the initiative to follow others, building a more symbiotic relationship with Twitter users. In general, companies have more followers than people they are following.
Companies on Twitter have multiple active accounts: for example, AT&T has multiple accounts for consumer information, corporate news, local search, different communities and business information.

FACEBOOK Fan Pages
U.S. companies are the most prominent on Facebook, with 69% having fan pages. In Europe, the proportion falls to 52% and goes further down at Asian and Latin American companies. Specifically, Asian company Facebook fan pages are focused on Western stakeholders, not their local audiences.
In the past week, 59% of companies posted on their Facebook fan page, while 82% of European companies had posts. Companies in Europe also posted more frequently at an average of 5 posts in the past week, compared with the overall average of 3.6 posts.
As with Twitter accounts, some companies have multiple fan pages.
The vast number of fans per page (average 40,884) demonstrates that people do want to engage with companies on Facebook.
Facebook fan pages have a unique ability for allowing company stakeholders to initiate comments and present opinions in a single location for both the company and other stakeholders to see. Many comments are positive (i.e., “Love this!”) and some are specific complaints about products (many with company responses).

YOUTUBE Channels
Fifty-nine percent of U.S. companies in the Fortune Global 100 have YouTube channels compared with 52% in Europe, 35% in Asia-Pacific and 33% in Latin America.
Viewers are actively watching corporate videos. There was an average of 38,958 views per video channel. Many viewers also maintain a relationship with the company via YouTube, with an average of 452 subscribers per channel and 54% of the channels boasting comments from viewers.
Companies like BMW are frequently uploading videos to keep consumers entertained. BMW’s videos elicit comments and engagement from fans.

While Asia-Pacific companies in the Fortune 100 are least likely to have a YouTube channel, those that do (i.e., LG, Sony and Hyundai) have more than one.

BLOGS
Corporate blogs are even more popular in Asia-Pacific, partly because Asian corporations are still more comfortable with online communications where they can closely manage the conversation.
As with other forms of social media, companies that have blogs tend to have multiple blogs. Multiple blogs allow multiple voices from the company to demonstrate expertise in their specialty area

Read all about those trends :

Global Social Media Checkup

View more presentations from Burson-Marsteller.

Tufts accepts YouTube videos as part of college application #NewEra

Did you think YouTube and social media were merely for fun / business / selling / PR ?
Look again, Tufts has given the green light for YouTube videos to be included in college application.

Unexpected ?
Think of it, if social media can be effective and efficient for reputation management, branding, PR and for marketing products and services… why wouldn’t future students leverage the same tools to “sell” themselves too ?

Irrational ?
Clearly, the rules and limits have to be set but other than that, in the end, it feels pretty natural.
With good music and lyrics to the point (that’s a personal point of view), those future students clearly demonstrate their personal brands and visual identities in an innovative way for the education system !

Look at the first video (link below). It starts with a founding statement that reaches beyond just the application as it applies directly to all sales, PR and marketing professionals, organic or digital : “You never really know someone until you’ve walked a mile in her shoes”
Pretty cool.

I’d personally tweet it as #NewEra. As a matter of fact, I just did !

Question:
Do you think other colleges will follow suit ? How about colleges in other countries, in Europe ? And to speak of where I am, how would the struggling French system integrate such technology into their admission processes, with top schools already busy dealing with the consequences of their refusal to positively discriminate for less well-off students ?

Great debates will certainly arise in time. Give it a few months… maybe a little more than 12.

Like it or hate it but we are definitely moving into new territory. And we’re only at the beginning of the learning curve !

To find out more and watch some of the cool vids, click here (source: Mashable)