Fabian Pattberg

Category Archives - Social Media

This is a category where I am providing information on the latest trends and developments I have come across in the social media and networking field as well as some other resources all related to the Internet.

My four favourite Sustainability people on Google+

November 1, 20117:54 am

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I am big fan of Google+. This much is clear from previous posts I guess. As Google+ is evolving and the Google team are adding more and more features, for me Google+ really proves itself as a great conversation tool. It is my clear alternative to Twitter these days.

Today I would like to introduce you to four people on Google+ which I find extremely useful to have in my Sustainability circle when we talk about Sustainability, CSR and Social Media topics.  My four favourite Sustainability people on Google+

Anneliza Humlen: A very interesting variety of posts including Sustainability, Social Media and Marketing.

Andrea Learned: You can rely on Andrea to provide really insightful Sustainability posts, politics commentary and on all other interesting information she comes across.

Priti Ambani: Priti’s shares are all about Sustainability, CSR and blogging. She has insightful comments and always engages. Keep up the great work Priti!

 Tom Raftery: Tom seems to have discovered the real value of Google+ to harness conversations on Sustainability and Social Media. If you are looking for anyone that is using Google+ as a very effective tool for communication in this field you need to add Tom to your circles.

My Twitter crackdown this week

October 30, 20118:08 am

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I was looking for a specific Twitter update at the end of last and it took me ages to find it. This made me realize that I am simply following to many people on Twitter in order to have a good overview to find what I was looking for. I followed 3000+ people and 95% where people I did not really know or which had a lot of automated updates from their websites, etc.twitter My Twitter crackdown this week

I therefore decided to review my whole list and started unfollowing the people and organizations I felt did not provide me with continuous interesting information on CSR / Sustainability and Social Media.

It nearly took me all week to go through the list one by one but I am now seeing the updates from the people on Twitter I want to see without the large amount of noise from all other people and organizations constantly promoting their work or websites.

This is a huge problem with Twitter I feel. When I browsed the web to see whether this is something other people did, I realized that mass unfollowing is becoming common practice these day.

This is a most recent article on this topic: Unfollowing to become common practice

I am now done to around 200 people and it feels good to finally have control over the Twitter updates I am reading instead of focusing on lists and luck to find what I am looking for.

Consolidation in the CSR Social Media field

July 16, 20119:04 am

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This week saw an interesting development in the CSR / Sustainability field. JustMeans was acquired by 3blMedia. This is the link to the press release. I have had several emails and messages on Twitter and Google+ asking me what I thought about this new development. Here is what I make of it.

3blmedia Consolidation in the CSR Social Media fieldMy View

I think this development is a sign of the current difficult economic times as well as normal consolidation in any kind of business sector. In my view JustMeans was going in no particular direction over the past months and seemed to slowly go away as a player in the CSR / Sustainability Social Media world. Toby Webb wrote about this several months ago and made some very good points.

This new development might kickstart another phase of interesting development for the site. I also hope that this acquisition does not mean that JustMeans will simply be another news outlet for 3blMedia. I am a strong believer in the fact that good content is the key to any websites success. If 3blMedia will focus on this strong content creation and engagement in a “non-marketing” and “honest” way I would expect the site to be a growing community for professionals in the field. This is what JustMeans wanted to be from the start after all. I hope they will succede with this new leadership. Best of luck from my side.

This is my take on the acquisition. What is yours?

The current Social Media Network dilemma & advice

July 7, 201110:55 am

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WIth the arrival of Google+ , Google’s answer to Facebook, the choice which Social Media Network to use just got more complicated (Link to the Google+ News)

With so much choice these days we are are clearly left with the dilemma which Social Media Network best fits our needs and wants. Here is what I am doing and would recommend for the time being.

 

Twittertwitter The current Social Media Network dilemma & advice

This is still my absolute favorite network to share information on. To me it seems that Twitter is also maturing at the moment. Most people I connect with on Twitter know what they are talking about and have been on Twitter for a while now (i.e. know what they want from this Network). This is a good sign for the quality conversations and interaction in my view.

My advice: Use Twitter as your number one Social Media Network. There is no better alternative out there at the moment.

 

Facebookfacebook logo The current Social Media Network dilemma & advice

I like Facebook and when I started to share more business related information a few months back, the feedback I got was and still is pretty mixed. For me the big question with Facebook is whether I am not annoying all other friends with this business information when they are expecting more of a personal note. Facebook is intended to be more personal after all.

My advice: Use Facebook mainly for personal connections. A way to differentiate networks is not really possible at the moment.

 

LinkedInlinkedin logo The current Social Media Network dilemma & advice

LinkedIn is a great site to host your online CV if you want to call it that. But I am not using it other then as an automatic outlet for my Twitter updates. LinkedIn in my view is the classic example of a great Social Network that is not being used enough from my side at the moment unfortunately.

 My advice: Use LinkedIn on a limited basis at the moment. It is great for your personal CV, etc but not really for engaging a wider network of people you do not know so far.

 

Google+googleplus logo The current Social Media Network dilemma & advice

Google+ is the new player in town. I have managed to get in while it is still in the testing phase and must say that I really like it. It is much simpler and “cleaner” in comparison to Facebook. The idea I have once Google+ is open to everyone, is that I will use this Social Media Network as my second CSR / Sustainability information outlet next to Twitter and limit my Facebook updates to purely personal updates.

My advice: Signup with Google+ and start creating your professional so called “Circles”. I am sure Google+ will be successful. Once more people sign up, you will see that it is a Social Media Network which will enable you to share relevant information for the intended networks at a click of a button.

Video: The latest Social Media facts

June 28, 20113:15 pm

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The whole concept and significance of Social Media can be quite confusing and complex for anyone wanting to understand Social Media. That is why facts presented in an interesting and interactive way are usually the most effective tool for providing the necessary context.

This is the best video I have seen in a long time with some intriguing facts that will make you realize how big Social Media is these days.

Thank you Chris Jarvis for pointing me to this great video!

Poll results: Latest Sustainability / CSR trends in 2011

June 22, 201112:24 pm

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Several weeks ago I started the online poll asking the question what in your view the biggest trend in CSR this year (2011) is so far was. This is the link to the poll post and results.pollimage Poll results: Latest Sustainability / CSR trends in 2011

Today’s post is taking a closer look at the top 5 and what this ranking of CSR / Sustainability topics and trends can possibly tell us. Here are the top 5 trends identified by 82 different voters from across the globe:

 

Top Trend: Social Media (20 votes)

I guess this comes a no surprise that Social Media is the top answer when you consider that the distribution of the poll mainly used Social Media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. But this is nevertheless a clear sign that Social Media continues to be the trend in 2011 in terms of CSR and Sustainability best practice.

 

Supply Chain is keeping everyone on their toes (14 votes)

This was a surprise for me to be honest. I did expect the topic to be a top 5 topic but not really at number 2. Possible reasons for this top placement in my view are that Supply Chain topics never really go away for a business no matter how much work they do or how well they are performing. The relationship with your suppliers (especially in the manufacturing) is usually changing each month at least and each organisation needs to stay on top of these developments. That is why best practice trends are always something organisations involved in making CSR / Sustainability work are looking for.

 

Stakeholder Engagement is changing (13 votes)

This is something I expected. This “Evergreen” is always very popular when we talk about CSR / Sustainability trends. The issue I have is that the term stakeholder engagement can mean so many different things in terms of CSR / Sustainability. The emergence of Social Media has proven to be a deciding factor for successful stakeholder engagement in my view. Stakeholder engagement means a lot more then just engaging stakeholders using Social Media but the increasing importance of Social Media will be an interesting differentiation for the continuous overall adoption of stakeholder engagement best practice across businesses globally.

 

GRI gets the recognition it deserves (10 votes)

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) being named one of the top 5 trends in 2011 was another positive surprise. The GRI has always been a important player in the CSR / Sustainability field but it seems that it focus on integrated reporting and the way it uses Social Media these days is something people in the field recognise and appreciate during 2011.

 

CSR /Sustainability Reporting and ISO 26000 round up the top 5 (6 votes each)

The fifth spot on with 6 votes each was a tie between CSR / Sustainability Reporting and the ISO 26000. Both of them are closely related and for me the most interesting aspect of this tie was that they are both about making sense of the way you report your CSR / Sustainability strategy and best practice as a business.

 

Conclusion:

Social Media, Supply Chain and the different aspects of CSR / Sustainability reporting are prevalent when you take this snapshot poll about the latest trends in 2011. Next to the communication aspect of CSR / Sustainability practices and activities, the guidance of institutions such as the GRI are very important to the people which voted.
This leads me to conclude that organisations and other institutions are slowly opening up in terms of communication but guidance on an array of CSR / Sustainability standardisation aspects (reporting, ISO 26000 and GRI) are also something CSR / Sustainability professionals are looking for in 2011.

 

Visibli – Better Social Media analytics

June 17, 20114:05 pm

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I have been looking for a good way to measure the usefulness of my tweets, blog posts and resources on my sites for quite a while and I think I may have found the best solution yet after testing Visibli for a few days this week.visiblilogo Visibli Better Social Media analytics

Visibli is an interesting service that quote ” helps companies and content creators expand their digital audience, and promote their products through shared links.”

The most useful elements in my view are:

  1. The fully customizable so called “Engagement Bar“.
  2. The easy integration into WordPress blogs and your Tweetdeck desktop application.
  3. The detailed analytics. Not to simple and not complicated.
  4. The possibility to sign in using Twitter, Facebook and with a normal registration.

Here are some more details on the main elements of Visibli in the press kit: http://visibli.com/presskit

All in all this look to be the best free of charge social media analytics tool on the market at the moment. I would encourage you to test it as well if you use Twitter and/or Facebook in a business context and like to know what is being clicked on, by whom and which stories are most popular.

Disclaimer: Visibli is not a customer of mine. I just found the service really useful. icon smile Visibli Better Social Media analytics

How to keep your CSR / Sustainability budget

June 9, 201111:45 am

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If you are a CSR / Sustainability professional you will most likely face the challenge of making most of the budget you have available for the year. Especially in bad economic times, budgets are likely to be cut and keeping your budget for your CSR / Sustainability projects and practices is not always as straight forward as it might seem.

Here are some tips I would like to give you from when I was in charge of the CSR / Sustainability budget working as the CSR Manager for a multinational.

  • budget How to keep your CSR / Sustainability budget Continuously make your case for keeping/increasing your budgets. Everyone within an organization is fighting to maintain or increase their own budgets. You should do the same.
  • If you are publishing a CSR / Sustainability Report, allocate at least 25% for it. My rule was always to use that 25% of the budget no matter how high it was in total. Some practitioners have different views and in the end is your own personal and organizational choice of course.
  • Spend more time than money on outreach and stakeholder engagement. Do not fall into this trap where people (or consultants) tell you that you need to spend large amounts on communication in order to get your message across. Make use of cost effective tools such as social media and some classic communication channels including press releases and hand-outs of interesting information material. But I would advise against big marketing campaigns and event launches as they usually do not have a long term marketing effect and cripple your budget for the rest of the year.
  • Do not attend all the conferences and workshops you can get to. Select a maximum of 5 events and conferences each year for your and/or your colleagues to attend. Traveling, conference fees, etc can easily eat up your budget for other crucial tasks or CSR / Sustainability projects.
  • Set aside some small part of your budget to support CSR / Sustainability related initiatives or projects of colleagues or groups of colleagues. This might sound obvious but you will be surprised how many colleagues will want to promote CSR / Sustainability even more within their department when they know that you found some budget for it.

These are some insights I wanted to share with everyone today. I hope you will find them useful. Feedback is highly appreciated. As always.

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmgimages/4882450962/