Social Media | FabianPattberg.com

Tag Archives - Social Media

CSR / Sustainability & Business Integration – Extending my topics range

July 28, 20114:37 pm

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?

Help me to help children in Uganda using social media

June 9, 201012:21 pm

2 Comments

I am very passionate about what I do. I guess you will know that by now. That is why I have decided to do a long term experiment to see how much support/money I can raise using social media.

There are some interesting websites to do this through but I decided to start using SocialVibe now to raise money. SocialVibe is a social media utility connecting people with brands, empowering them to engage with sponsors and share branded content with their social graph to benefit a cause of their choice.

I was a little doubtful at the beginning but really warmed to the idea of using and reviewing the branded content to actually get something positive out of it.

For me this is another way I can try to give back to causes I am fully supporting. Sustainability and CSR in a personal way really.

My Cause
The cause I will be supporting is to raise as money ‘Invisible Children’ (IC) for the education of children in Uganda. IC’s goal is to end a 20 year war that has been raging in Northern Uganda, and the kidnapping of children who are then used as child soldiers. In light of the current situation nearing peace, Invisible Children is addressing the need for access to education and economic development.

Everyone can participate to raise money which will pay for hours of education of these Ugandan children.

Please join me on SocialVibe to team up and make a difference for these children. The more join in the better. No costs or commitments involved. Just good will and some of your minutes every now and then for a good cause.

My cause URL:
http://www.socialvibe.com/fabian

Facebook – A useful Sustainability and CSR platform?

February 16, 20106:28 pm

1 Comment

I guess most of you are also members of Facebook and I assume you are also interested in Sustainability and CSR. The question I have pondered on during the last few weeks is whether Facebook is actually a good platform for the Sustainability / CSR field. I am convinced that LinkedIn and Twitter are but what about Facebook?

These are the positives, negatives and the unknown aspects of Facebook and Sustainability/CSR from my point of view.

Positives

Facebook is a huge platform. Here are some stats on Facebook’s reach. What an amazing place for potentially promoting Sustainability / CSR. A recent example is the Robin Hood Tax group which has amassed over 70.000+ members within days.
Facebook offers an amazing potential reach for causes or people with common interests. This is the a link to a recent success story of a London Group. Really interesting. Imagine this could be a Sustainability / CSR group next time.
It is free of charge with all sorts of ways to connect to friends, family, likeminded people and interesting Sustainability / CSR information.
Important discussions and topics are being shared and discussed. A very promising breeding ground for potential new ways of stakeholder engagement, etc.
Great technology and amazing interactivity features that can only help visualize and expose certain aspects of Sustainability / CSR in a positive way.

Negatives

What about my privacy? Are the new privacy settings really working? Will these new rules be enough for everyone to feel safe while sharing something on Facebook?
From a company point of view it can be said that the barriers of entry for companies on Facebook are still to high (Just look at the revenues Facebook is making from ads…not much in comparison to how big they are). Could this be a sign that the consumer is disinterested in the corporate world on Facebook? How can a company run a Facebook campaign and properly tap into the vast stakeholder feedback that it could offer?

The unknown Facebook factor for Sustainability / CSR

Will Facebook also be a platform for promoting Sustainability / CSR or help us be more sustainable? Sometimes it seems to me that the things we do on Facebook such as joining a group or becoming a fan of something/ omeone is just too superficial. Where is the use in it?

In summary
I do not think we could imagine a world without Facebook now but this is not true for the Sustainability / CSR field. Currently there are different platforms that are more significant. And not Facebook.

So the questions is: Isn’t Facebook really just a platform for connecting with your friends and family or will it transform into something different over time? Something more complex….. Mark Zuckerberg definitely things so.
For the Sustainability / CSR field, Facebook still needs to evolve in order to be more accessible. Maybe is this something the Facebook teams are currently working on. Who knows…………