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Tag Archives - Social Media

Is Facebook mutating into a money-making machine?

February 2, 201212:31 am

I just heard about the upcoming Facebook IPO via mashable and needed to write a quick post about it as I feel that this development has a significant CSR angle to it.

The CSR angle of the Facebook IPO

The big problem I see is that Facebook is getting to powerful and influential due to its extreme high valuation ($15 billion USD+) and the consequential interest of global investors that are after one thing only: Making lots of money.

Facebook’s purpose in my view, is to provide us with a platform to connect with our friends and family. And to me it seems that an IPO will in a way sell our personal information and relationships to the shareholders of Facebook. And this is not right. It is actually very wrong.

As a responsible business Facebook should focus on providing us with the best possible personal global social networking site and not mutate into a global money-making machine out to let us pay for premium features or inundating us with the latest PR exercise of a global car manufacturer for example.

I really like Facebook don’t get me wrong but if Facebook will mutuate into this money-making machine once it is a publicly-listed company, then I am surely leaving it for good as I do not want to be part of this website anyone.

This is my view on this. What is yours?

Twitter is the most popular Sustainability / CSR Social Media channel

January 29, 20124:33 pm

4 Comments

Last week I conducted a poll aimed at identifying the most popular Social Media channel for your Sustainability / CSR topics. The result was unambiguous really.

Twitter is the most popular Social Media channel for Sustainability / CSR topics.

These are the results in numbers:

Twitter with 73% (40 votes)
Facebook with 11% (6 votes)
Google+ with 15% (8 votes)
LinkedIn with 16% (9 votes)
Other with 7% (4 votes)

What does this mean?

Two main messages really.
(1) If you are intending to communicate any kind of Sustainability / CSR message, the Social Media channel you should use as your primary channel is Twitter.
(2) Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ are alternatives but at this point not really considered as useful as Twitter.

What are your thoughts on this result? All views are welcomed.

Your CSR / Sustainability world in 2012: What could you do different?

December 21, 20113:14 pm

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A strange title I know but the purpose of this post is very simple. What could you do as a CSR / Sustainability professional in 2012 different to 2011?

I have listed three points, which I feel are very important and useful for everyone working the CSR / Sustainability field across the globe.

Point 1 : Why not strive to learn more about CSR / Sustainability?

This is what I have set myself as a goal for 2012. I have been working in the field for a long time now but I find that I also need to read more CSR / Sustainability related literature (books & ebooks) on a regular basis. My daily routine includes reading my favourite blogs via my RSS reader but I noticed that I am not reading enough published CSR / Sustainability literature anymore. This might sound like a very simple thing to do but I have noticed that during the daily routine I usually do not give myself the time to read books that provide me with a more in-depth viewpoint or information background.

I will now brush up on CSR / Sustainability classics such as Simon Zadek’s The Civil Corporation: The New Economy of Corporate Citizenship and John Elkington’s The Chrysalis Economy: How Citizen CEOs and Corporations Can Fuse Values and Value Creation, just to name two very insightful CSR / Sustainability classics.

Point 2: Write more about what you do

I assure you that once you read more about CSR / Sustainability, you would want to write more about it as well. This does not mean that you have to have a full-fledged blog. Easy does it in my view. If you do not want to have a blog then why sart email conversations with friends, colleagues, etc about CSR / Sustainability topics. This is a great way to digest the information you have just read or learned in my experience.

Point 3: Communicate more via Social Media

Communicating using Social Media is an easy thing to say, I know. But why don’t you give yourself 10 minutes each day to tweet via Twitter or post interesting information on your LinkedIn page. It does not have to be more time you spend each day or every other day. If you keep up this routine, I am assuring you that you will have a lot of fun doing this and at the same time will have the opportunity to get to know lots of likeminded people from across the globe reaching out to you and the information you are sharing.
If you are looking to get started in Social Media and do not know where to start, then this posts from a few months ago should help you with that: My current Social Media dilemma.

So what are you waiting for? Start doing something different today to change your life tomorrow for the better.

CSR / Sustainability & Business Integration – Extending my topics range

July 28, 20114:37 pm

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The past months brought a lot of change in my life as you will have read from some of my older posts. But one element of life has pretty much stayed the same. This blog. The possibility to write and have an audience is something I am very grateful for and which I enjoy so very much. Over the years, this blog evolved from my personal website to a respected source of CSR / Sustainability commentary and Social Media resources. This will not change. Quite the opposite.

The plan is to extend the range of topics I blog about in order for this blog to once again reflect what I do in my life on a professional level. This has always been the purpose of this blog and I felt that it was a little “out of sync” over the past months with what I do professionally these days.

Future posts will not always be on CSR / Sustainability and Social Media but will also include more about what I do on a more general business level. I am sure you will find these posts helpful as I am more convinced then ever that CSR / Sustainability topics are and need to be more of an integral part of business these days. And I want to do my bit to promote this integration with writing about my experiences and learnings.

These are the areas I will now write more about next to CSR / Sustainability and Social Media:

Business Advice
Leadership
Business Processes
Various other aspects of business life

Thank you everyone for the support you have given me so far and I am sure that the new topics will also be as useful for you as the CSR / Sustainability and Social Media topics are.

Consolidation in the CSR Social Media field

July 16, 20119:04 am

1 Comment

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.

My 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?