MODULE THREE

CORPORATE
ACCOUNTABILITY AND
SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES
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 A: CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY

• Corporate accountability defined as

the act of being accountable to the
stakeholders of an organization,
which may include shareholders,
employees, suppliers, customers, the
local community and even the
particular country(s) that the firm
operates in.
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 Cont….

OR
• The performance of a publicly traded
company in non-financial areas such
as social responsibility, sustainability
and environmental performance.

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 Cont….

• Corporate accountability advocate

that financial performance should
not be a company's only important
goal and that shareholders are not
the only people a company must be
responsible to; stakeholders such as
employees and community members
also requires accountability.
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 Cont….

• The act of being accountable to the

stakeholders of an organization,
which may include shareholders,
employees, suppliers, customers, the
local community, and even the
particular country(s) that the firm
operates in.

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 Cont….

• Corporate Accountability as a social

movement.
–sees a need to move from
voluntary measures to a
framework that ensure
answerability, enforceability and
universality of application
–focuses on a range of issues
(labour rights, environmental
standards, political influence, etc.)
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 Difference between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate
accountability (CA)

• Corporate responsibility, corporate social

responsibility (CSR) and corporate
accountability are sometimes confused
or seen to be synonymous. However,
corporate responsibility and corporate
accountability are typically distinguished
from one another along several lines.
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 Difference between CSR and CA………..

• 1st Corporate responsibility in its

broadest sense refers to varied
practices that reflect the belief that
corporations have responsibilities
beyond generating profit for their
shareholders .

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 Difference between CSR and CA………..

• Such responsibilities include the

negative duty to refrain from harm
caused to the environment,
individuals or communities, and
sometimes also positive duties to
protect society and the environment,
for example protecting human rights
of workers and communities affected
by business activities.
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 Difference between CRS & CA Cont…

• Such responsibilities are generally

considered to extend not only to direct
social and environmental impacts of
business activity, but also to more indirect
effects resulting from relationships with
business partners, such as those involved
in global production chains.
WHILE
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 Difference between CRS & CA Cont…

• In contrast, the term corporate

accountability is commonly used
instead to refer to more
confrontational or enforceable
strategies of influencing corporate
behaviour.

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 Difference between CRS & CA Cont…

• 2nd Often, the term corporate

responsibility is used to indicate
voluntary approaches, even though
those supported by market based
incentives.
WHILE

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 Difference between CRS & CA Cont…

• Corporate accountability typically

implies that corporate behaviour is
influenced by pressure exerted by
social and governmental actors
beyond the company itself. Such
actors can adopt a range of strategies,
including but not limited to the
mobilization of legal mechanisms to
enforce social standards.
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 B: CORPORATE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES

•Social media is a fusion of sociology and

technology. Social media is user-
controlled, which means that sociological
components play a large role in any
company’s social media strategy. The
limits of social media are only set by the
limits of the technology of social media
tools.
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 Cont….

• Also social media defined as a dialogue

where at one time companies had a
monodialogue with its customers. Here
a company put out television
commercial or print about its products
and then wanted to see whether the
sales rolled in to determine success rate.
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 Cont….

• Now social media allows company to

have dialogue with its customers and
gain valuable feedback and input as
it creates the message.
• Corporate social media is the use of
social media by and within
corporations.
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 Cont….
• Today, an increasing number of
corporations, across most industries,
have adopted the use of social media
in the workplace.
• As a result, corporate use of social
networking and micro blogging sites
such as Face book, Twitter, Pinterest
and LinkedIn, has substantially
increased.
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 Cont….
• For customer interactions,
companies use external social media
platforms to engage with existing
and prospective customers, reinforce
brand messaging, influence customer
opinions, provide targeted offers,
and service customer more
efficiently.
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 Cont….

• In hiring, companies are using these

platforms to reach out to and engage
with prospective employees in a more
targeted and engaging manner.
• In employee engagement, companies
are deploying internal social media
tools to drive greater employee
engagement, collaboration, and
productivity.
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 Cont….

• In new product development and

launch, companies are using a mix of
internal and external social media
tools for idea generation, idea
evaluation, and fast new product
launch.  

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 SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES
• As companies focus on effectively
controlling social media platforms,
there are a few critical things to keep
in mind.
• Here are the four strategies that
have achieved superior results:

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 Social media strategies….
1. Develop a comprehensive social media
strategy.
 Business networking and hiring platforms such
as LinkedIn
 Industry-specific platforms, e.g. travel forums,
automotive message boards
 Specialty multimedia sharing sites such as
YouTube and Pinterest
 Country-specific platforms such as Renren.com

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 Social media strategies….

• To be able to know which social

media platforms to incorporate as
part of its social media strategy, a
company needs to systematically
track top platforms where the
company and its brands are being
discussed.
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 Social media strategies…..

2. Establish a two-way communication

model. Companies who use social media
just to disseminate information to
customers may not see high returns from
social media usage.
• Instead, companies who use social media
platforms as a two-way communication
medium tend to have a more successful
social media approach.
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 Social media strategies…..

There are several tactics that can

be used to establish two-way
communication, including:
Posting questions and surveys
related to the company as well as
general topics of interests

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 Social media strategies……

Getting customers, prospects, employees, and

candidates to share their queries and
experiences related to the company and its
products, as well as themes related to the
company’s business (e.g., best travel stories).
This can even extend to the sharing of photos
and videos
Set up dedicated customer service pages,
tabs, or handles, as well as dedicated
candidate query pages, with a promise of high
responsiveness
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 Social media strategies….

• Doing this requires constant focus on

generating new ideas and content for
social media, as well as the ability to
post content and responses in a
highly efficient and streamlined
manner.

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 Social media strategies….
3. Retain control of content being
posted on behalf of the company.
Some companies tend to outsource
their social media asset management
to their advertising partners.
• In such situations, however,
companies should make sure they
retain control of and full editorial rights
to what is being posted on their behalf.
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 Social media strategies….

4. Set targets and measure

performance. It is critical for
companies embarking on social
media initiatives to set targets,
measure performance against those
targets, and compare their
performance against competitors.
What is measured gets improved.
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 Social media strategies….

• Some of the key performance

indicators to track include:
Share of social media conversations
for the company/brand vis-à-vis
competitors
Positive and negative sentiment for
the company/brand vis-à-vis
competitors
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 Social media strategies….

Monthly addition in number of social

media followers
Average time taken to respond to
comments by social media users by
type of comment (e.g. positive
feedback, customer service issue)

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 Benefits of social media strategies
• Companies who incorporate these
best practices in their social media
strategy can get the maximum
benefit from their social media
initiatives. Some of the benefits
include:

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 Benefits......

1.Overall: Increased
followership on social media
sites and increased brand
share of voice on social media
platforms vs. competitors.

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 Benefits......

2. Sales improvements: Sales leads

generated from social media
platforms; and improved conversion
of leads through actively engaging
with prospects, providing targeted
offers via social media, and driving
greater brand advocacy by providing
an open platform for happy
customers to voice their opinions.
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 Benefits......

3. Customer service improvements:

Reduced time of responding to
customers and improved customer
satisfaction.

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 Benefits......

4. Efficiency improvements: A large

number of
customers/prospects/candidates
reached at a lower cost compared to
traditional
advertising/communication media,
marketing campaigns executed
faster, and faster ability to hire.
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 C: LABOUR AND EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATION NETWORK

• Communication with employees is

important, even in small
organizations keeping them
informed about new products,
customer wins, important
appointments or new business
opportunities builds positive
attitudes and commitment.
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 Continue….

• Organization can use newsletters or

an employee page on its website to
publish relevant organization news.
• This can be done by Sending press
releases on organizations
developments to local newspapers
and help attract new employees if
they are expanding the organization.
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 Continue…

• Labour/Employee/organizational
communications refer to communications
and interactions among employees or
members of an organization. Normally
the terms internal communications and
organizational communications mean the
same thing. Internal communications
also have been called internal relations
(Cutlip, Center and Broom, 2006).
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 Continue….

• Here, communication is the central

process through which employees
share information, create
relationships, make meaning and
“construct” organizational culture
and values.

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 Continue….

• A communication network represents

how communication flows in an
organization.
• Networks can be formal and informal.
• In a formal communication network,
messages travel through official
pathways (e.g., newsletters, memos,
policy statements) that reflect the
organization’s hierarchy.
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 Continue….
• Informal communications move along
unofficial paths (e.g., the grapevine,
which is now electronic, fast and
multidirectional) and include rumors,
opinions, aspirations and expressions of
emotions. Informal communications are
often interpersonal and horizontal, and
employees believe they are more
authentic than formal communications.
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 Why Internal Communication Matters in Corporate public relations

• Communication is one of the most dominant

and important activities in organizations.
• Fundamentally, relationships grow out of
communication, and the functioning and
survival of organizations is based on effective
relationships among individuals and groups.
In addition, organizational capabilities are
developed and enacted through “intensely
social and communicative processes”.
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 Continue….

• Communication helps individuals and

groups coordinate activities to
achieve goals, and it’s vital in
socialization, decision-making,
problem-solving and change-
management processes.

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 Continue….

• Internal communication also

provides employees with important
information about their jobs,
organization, environment and each
other.
• Communication can help motivate,
build trust, create shared identity
and encourage engagement;
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 Continue….

• It provides a way for individuals to

express emotions, share hopes and
ambitions and celebrate and
remember accomplishments.
• Communication is the basis for
individuals and groups to make sense
of their organization, what it is and
what it means.
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 Continue….

• Effective internal communications

help increase employee job
satisfaction, morale, productivity,
commitment and learning;
• Improve communication climate and
relationships with publics; and
enhance quality, revenues and
earnings.
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