The Four Big Social Media Mistakes Your Company Is Probably Making

While the vast majority of large and mid-sized businesses have been engaging in social media outreach as part of their marketing strategy for at least five years, nearly half are unable to pinpoint any impact this marketing has had on their bottom line.

Recently the Harvard Business Review ran The Basic Social Media Mistakes Companies Still Make, which notes that although 97% of Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn, 84% are on Facebook, and 86% are on Twitter, many brands entered the social media realm without a clear strategy. And without any strategy, you’re going to end up with a lot more mistakes than success. You may not be running at Fortune 500 company, but your sustainability business can certainly learn from their mistakes.

MISTAKE #1: Creating a Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account and setting goals for increasing “the numbers of likes, comments and shares.” It may seem promising, but “likes,” comments and shares are probably not worth much to your income. If you don’t connect your social media actions to broader business goals from the beginning, your return on investment (ROI) becomes elusive, and social media becomes an end unto itself.

MISTAKE #2: Limiting brand preference. This means focusing entirely on Facebook or Instagram or whatever social media channel you feel is the most popular instead of implementing a multichannel outreach strategy. Looking back to the Fortune 500 companies, only 66% are using YouTube, 45% are on Instagram, 36% have corporate blogs, and even less are on Pinterest (a mere 33%). If your business choses not engage other platforms, you could miss out on valuable business opportunities.

Research by Millward Brown Digital found that 93% of Pinterest users planned purchases on the platform and 87% actually made a purchase after seeing a product they liked. Utilizing a platform like Snapchat might be the ideal way to reach millennials and Instagram has played an integral role in helping to lift sales for multiple brands. Super important stat: business that have prioritized blogging are 13 times more likely to receive positive ROI.

MISTAKE #3: Only pushing information out.  While you need to engage your customers with stories that evoke emotions, solve their problems and help brighten their day, the best — and most underutilized tool — is responding to your customers. Replies to comments — even negative comments — can help bolster the image of your brand. And engaging lets your customers know you are listening.

So how do you make social media work for your business? Let’s start by basing your social strategy on business objectives — not just gaining more followers or “likes” — follow up on that by thinking about who your target market is, what social media platforms will best reach that group, and the tools and metrics that can help you achieve those goals. Focusing on increasing brand awareness for a certain age range during a specific time frame? That is an actual business goal, one you can achieve!

And when you are considering which platforms to utilize, remember more is not always better. If a social media outlet doesn’t seem to vibe with your business objectives, it might be better to post less or even close that account.

MISTAKE #4: Not tracking analytics. There are a number of social media options when it comes to analytics, so take the time to research those options and find what makes the most sense for your business. If you can see where your efforts are working (and where they are not making much impact) it will help you focus your attention in the areas that are improving your bottom line.

Social media and sustainability go hand in hand. Utilizing the right social media channels will give your company the chance to expand engagement, transparency, rethink societal roles, and more.

Looking for an example? Take Toms, the shoe company – Toms has utilized social media to promote initiatives such as One for One. And once a year they have a One Day Without Shoes campaign which last year provided shoes to over 27,000 children.

Establishing a social media strategy that is business oriented may seem overwhelming, but if you take a step back and remember to take your business goals and target market into consideration, it will be much easier to prove you are seeing ROI via your social media activities. Not just a few more thumbs up each day

4 of the Best Ways to Share Your Carbon Footprint Results

Enjoy this article from the SSC blog archives:

Once you've gone through the trouble of gathering all of your data and crunching the numbers, many companies get stuck on how to most effectively communicate their carbon footprint results. Should you do a press release? Put it on the company website? Participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Report process?

There are lots of ways to share the results of your carbon footprint. But before you jump into particular communication channels, it's essential to decide what aspects of the data you want to highlight. Here's our take on the four most critical elements to share:

1. Your absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. 

This is the total metric tons of CO2-e that your company is responsible for over a given time period (usually a year). Be sure to divide it up between Scope 1 (direct emissions -- like natural gas), Scope 2 (indirect emissions – like electricity), and Scope 3 (indirect emissions -- value chain activities such as employee commuting, business travel, and waste).

2. Your adjusted GHG emissions. 

Absolute emissions are important, but they lack context. You should also choose a relevant way to adjust for your company's specific operations. This might mean looking at carbon-per-employee, carbon-per-revenue, carbon-per-sales, or carbon-per-production-unit. 

3. Emissions over time. 

For both absolute and adjusted emissions, it's helpful to show a track record -- three years is considered the minimum, while five years or more is considered the “best practice.” (Of course, if you've just started calculating your annual carbon footprint, you won't have a 3-year track record yet!). By showing how your carbon profile changes over time, you'll give stakeholders an idea of your future trajectory.

4. Your carbon footprint story.

Don't just put up the numbers…explain them. What boundary did you draw around your footprint (e.g. what operations and activities were included)? Why are your numbers going up (or down)? How have changes to your business operations (like acquisitions, mergers, divestments, layoffs, expansions, etc.) affected your emissions profile? What are you expecting to see in the future? A few paragraphs of explanation will make a world of difference in your communications.

Once you have the pieces in place, what are the best vehicles for sharing your carbon footprint information? We've listed our favorite options below -- and we'd love to hear your opinions in the comments section!

• Website -- great as an all-purpose communications vehicle, for internal and external stakeholders. Example: Nestle
• Visual infographic -- more interesting than a simple chart (when done correctly). Example: Microsoft
• Press release -- a traditional way to announce timely news and to drive readers to your website, your sustainability report, and other communications. Example: Green Century Funds
• Employee all-hands meeting -- a personal touch can go a long way in generating enthusiasm and buy-in among all levels of staff. Example: Megamas Training Company 
• Sustainability report -- the standard “best-practice” way to share not just your carbon footprint, but also other social and environmental performance. Example: Coca Cola (and note their disclosure about carbon recalculation at the bottom!) 
• Social media – by making the dialogue related to carbon calculations more social, companies can take their disclosure to the next level. Example: SAP 

Find out how you can become a better sustainability leader in one of our latest blogs.

Do Sustainability Consultants Need to Blog?

We like to update the SSC website twice a week with blog posts, and these are some of the reasons why. Enjoy this post from the SSC archives:

Short Answer: YES! 

Read on for the long answer…

Last week we established the fact that every sustainability consultant needs to have a website. Let's take that thinking a step further and talk about adding a blog to that website. Here are three reasons why sustainability consultants should have a blog.

1. Blogging keeps your content fresh.

We did a survey last year that collected information on more than 75 sustainability consultancies in the United States. All of these companies had websites (and so we're sure that there are dozens more that haven't gotten around to creating a website yet). As we delved deeper, trying to identify the "real players" in the industry, we discovered that many of the websites were static. It was hard to tell if these were actively practicing sustainability consultants—or if they had thrown in the towel (as many did in 2010 and 2011) and just had another year or two on the domain before the website expired. Blogging is one of the easiest and fastest ways to continuously add information to your website—making it clear to prospective clients, partners, and colleagues that you are still in the game.

2. Blogging gives you a chance establish thought leadership.

It's pretty easy to throw up a sustainability consulting website—and a quick Google search will reveal that many of the sustainability consulting websites are using the same language and offering the same services (sustainability gap assessment, anyone?). It can be really hard to tell the differences between boutique consultancies—especially those that are relatively new and haven't put a lot of effort into developing their website. Blogging is a great way to quickly build out the breadth and depth of your sustainability services. It allows you to demonstrate that you are more than the bland service descriptions you provide. You have ideas! You have suggestions! You have great case studies! You have resources to share! All of this information can easily and effectively be disseminated via a blog—and it will keep people coming back for more.

3. Blogging allows you to express personality.

Other areas of your website may be pretty standard and straightforward, but a blog allows you to talk directly to your readers in a natural voice. You can be controversial, you can be funny, and you can be inspirational — just be authentic. Prospective clients and partners reading your blog can get a sense of what it will be like to work with you — and that can be incredibly helpful in advancing your business development goals.

Wondering what are some of the skills all sustainability consultants should have? Read more here.