Community engagement and social media at the Global CSR Summit 2010

The Second Annual Global CSR Summit 2010 & Awards, held in Singapore in June this year, was to “celebrate and salute the resilience of companies that have not only weathered the financial storm but remained resolute in trying times, to continuously uphold the highest standards in CSR, while developing innovative and sustainable solutions and products for greater profitability and improving the welfare of societies.”While there has been some criticism about CSR conferences recently (to which the CSR Digest even tweeted agreement), the Pinnacle Group International‘s summit this year had noteworthy talks which differentiated this conference from last year’s (and even from most other conferences held recently).

Heinz Landau, Executive Vice President of B. Grimm Group

Firstly, this was one of the first conferences the CSR Digest has attended which addressed the issue of social media. Heinz Landau, Executive Vice President of B. Grimm Group, pointed out the Boycott BP  on Facebook (which to date has 836,558 likes). Meanwhile, Goh Chee Kong, Vice President, Corporate Marketing & Communications of SMRT Corporation Ltd, discussed how his organisation used social media to inspire and engage the public with their CSR programmes.

Goh Chee Kong, Vice President, Corporate Marketing & Communications of SMRT Corporation Ltd.

Mr. Goh’s presentation, entitled “The SMRT Experience: Leveraging Social Media to Engage The Community”, was funny and engaging from the get-go. SMRT’s pillars of CSR are focussed on their employees, the community and the environment. To this end, SMRT uses social media to:

• Engage SMRT customers in ways that do not involve our products and services
• Manage branding perceptions
• To reach out to younger, net savvy generation
• Tap and empower enthusiastic customers
• Spread the word about community activities

Mr. Goh used “SMRT is Green” as a case study. This began with a “Go Green With SMRT” page, which includes competitions. The competitions spread virally via Facebook wall posts. Together with this, the organisation used Youtube, bloggers and student brand evangalists using social media to engage the community, on- and off-line.

According to him, the Facebook initiative caused 37,000 sign-ups, about one quarter the total of participants. He added that the cost of getting this number was far less than the roadshows and print ads the organisation used. Mr. Goh added that the current use of the iPhone and iPad are cross-generational, and more and more people are getting engaged online, which makes social media increasingly important, although traditional media has its place.

Robert Grove, Edelman's Managing Director Southeast Asia

Robert Grove, Edelman’s Managing Director Southeast Asia, also brought fresh perspective to the conference. His presentation, “What Is The Role Of Communications and Social Media in Corporate Social Responsibility (Leadership)?”, started off by stating that messages are dead and aggregating content and enabling dialogue was in. The way to do execute the latter is through “real time, all the time, multi-stakeholder, multi channels”.

The challenge, according to Mr. Grove, was moving:

• from pitchingto informing
• from controlto conversation
• from static stories to dynamic narratives
• from influencing to advocating

He then discussed the evolution of CSR, expectations, engagement and advocacy. Several case studies were brought up, including Marks & Spencer and Shell. Finally, he showed how brand and reputation might be affected by showing the difference between the searches done on “NIKE and Shape” (its CSR effort) and “NIKE and Sweatshop” (see below).

Other interesting talks were by Jean-Michel Piedagnel of Woodseer Consulting, who discussed how to strengthen staff alignment to business strategies, and Greg Koch Director of Global Water Stewardship  The Coca-Cola Company, who brought home that sustainability is more than the environment, but about your business.

Jean-Michel Piedagnel, Founder and Principal Consultant of Woodseer Consulting

Brian Lariche

Especially noteworthy was Brian John Lariche of Lariche Community, whose presentation was on the second day of the summit. Entitled “Creating Effective Community Investment Partnerships”, discussed how businesses could establish tie-ups with nonprofits. With over 20 years in the business, Mr. Lariche’s presentation brought a different dimension to the whole conference.

He highlighted that a business must be aligned to the cause, stating that there might be a mismatch of cause and business: for example, “a corporation in the banking industry probably has no real ability to solve the issue of kidnapped children. A clothing retailer probably can’t solve world hunger.”

He stated:

The corporation would be better served if the selected cause leveraged the skills, connections, and resources within the company. The unifying and memorable theme helps rally the company’s available resources, which deliver something meaningful and have a real impact.

On the whole, the Pinnacle Group International did a great job with this year’s selection of speakers and topics, as well as the location of the Summit. Perhaps a more refined and focussed CSR area, because the CSR Digest feels its time the industry began specialising.