We the People: Social media and sustainability
This essay is included in Connect! Marketing in the social media era, edited by Jeff Caswell. Labeled as The Project 100, the book features 100 authors’ 400-word essays on how to use social media to build brands that consumers love. The book was published as paperback in March 2009 on Blurb.com (all profits support Susan G. Komen for the Cure). More at The Project 100.
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It’s no coincidence that social media has emerged concurrently with the rise of corporate social responsibility. The two trends have similar characteristics and have potential to reinforce each other. Social media may well be the ideal tool for socially responsible businesses to empower their brand communities to work toward the greater good.
Drawing firepower and vocabulary from military strategy classics, traditional business and marketing centers on the opposition of us versus them: marketers broadcast campaigns of carefully crafted messages to static target groups via a variety of touchpoints. Niche marketers analyze their target groups’ needs and position their businesses to satisfy them.
Sustainable marketing, that is, marketing toward the triple bottom line of Prosperity, Planet, and People, blurs the opposition and ditches the old labels. It’s us and us now. We care and share responsibility for the same planet. We participate in the same community. We all prosper if we all prosper.
Because of its nature, social media lends itself beautifully to sustainable marketing. We listen, participate and engage voluntarily as individuals. We connect with other people, forming or joining networks and communities. We share and exchange valuable, useful content and resources. We give and we are given.
Sustainable marketers should use social media to engage with people in authentic conversations and meaningful experiences. Providing a product or service solution to customers’ problems no longer cuts it. We must connect with people to cultivate relationships based on affinity and trust. Sustainable marketing thinks of relationships first and sales transactions last. We link and we become links.
Sustainable marketers should use social media to cultivate communities around their brands. According to McMillan and Chavis, a sense of community is “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together.” A sense of community goes beyond self, it reaches others like us; it goes beyond minds, it captures hearts. Creating emotional connections beats enticing rational decisions. We are united when we unite.
Companies tend to tack sustainability and social media onto their existing business models and marketing efforts. Yet both represent a paradigm shift in doing business and both must be placed in the strategic heart of business to work. It takes people to put people first. We are, indeed, the ones we’ve been waiting for.
Let’s start that conversation.
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References and inspirations:
- Paul Isakson, “Modern Brand Building: Stop Campaigning, Start Committing”
- David McMillan and David Chavis, “Sense of Community: A Definition and Theory”, Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 14, 1986
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A shorter version of the essay appeared on the Business Leader NW Blog.
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