SNA and CSR communications on Twitter

Katie Ferrari

Proposed SNA blog post

DHP P217 (for credit)

Background:

A recent study by Cone Communications found that 63 percent of consumers say they don’t know where to find information about a company’s CSR efforts and results. The same study found that 86 percent of consumers are more likely to trust a company that reports its corporate social responsibility (CSR) results. Meanwhile, 40 percent of consumers say they won’t purchase a company’s products or services if CSR results are not communicated, yet more than half don’t understand the impact they are having when buying a product from a company that says it is socially responsible.

The stakes are real for companies to address the gap between consumer demand for CSR reporting and the lack of CSR knowledge. Increasingly, stakeholders are holding corporations accountable for their social and environmental impact, subjecting them to greater scrutiny and expecting greater engagement. Ineffective CSR communications can translate to reduced consumer purchases, while robust communications can build brand trust. Given the impact of Web 2.0 in a dramatically changed media landscape, are online social network applications addressing the CSR communications gap?

A popular social network platform, Twitter significantly lowers the barriers to interacting with stakeholders, both in terms of listening and pushing out information. My goal with this project is to understand role that Twitter plays in the online CSR communications ecosystem. Anchoring on Interbrand’s 2012 list of Best Global Green Brands, which evaluates the world’s top brands on the basis of their performance as well as the public’s perception, I will use social network analysis to map the ego networks of companies that use a dedicated Twitter handle to communicate their CSR activities. By analyzing Twitter’s efficacy as a tool for CSR communications, I hope to draw insights around when and how it is valuable.

Research Question:

Is Twitter an effective tool for CSR communications?

Questions & Methodology:

A social network approach can help determine the structural embeddedness of a company’s Twitter account, which can in turn be used to infer whether the tool is effective for CSR communications. While Twitter itself doesn’t necessarily capture social networks or build social relationships, it does act as a carrier for other meaningful information amongst a self-selected network of nodes. Using NodeXL and UCINET, I plan to analyze RT and follower networks as well as the #CSR hashtag network to in order to answer questions such as the following:

-       What does a company’s follower network look like? Of the obvious stakeholders, who is represented, and who missing?

-       Does the company have a two-way relationships with its followers?

-       Does a company’s Twitter account help it penetrate customer or advocacy groups?

-       Does Twitter help a company become a betweenness hub, or does a company remain on the periphery of a discussion about its CSR practices?

-       Does a company’s Twitter account help it broker conversations about its social and environmental impact?  Where are the structural holes?

-       And finally, with regards to the #CSR hashtag network, which users have the greatest Eigenvector centrality (influence)? Are they engaging with the company in question? Is the engagement supportive or critical? Do connect groups that wouldn’t otherwise be connected?

Attribute data:

-       Sector (nonprofit, private, public)

-       Field (academic, activist, media, marketing, social enterprise)

-       Geography

-       Gender (male, female, non-gendered)

Hypothesis:

Yes, Twitter is an effective tool for CSR communications, but only under specific conditions. The conditions will be the interesting part—I assume that content issues including consistency and clarity of CSR message have a role to play, but I’m especially curious about network issues, including whether the #CSR hashtag increases visibility and influence, whether the difference between two-way and one-way follower relationships affects embeddedness, and whether Twitter really is connecting stakeholders to companies.

Personal doubts/questions:

-       Data: there’s a lot of it, and it’s difficult to wrap my head around it. The Twitter API is open, and I know I can tap into it with the help of more technically inclined friends. This makes me wonder whether I shouldn’t try to focus on one company and do a longitudinal study (by downloading data with NodeXL, I don’t have access to all the Twitter history—it’s more of a snapshot in time). If I could access this data, I could potentially focus on a company like Nestle, which is one of the most trusted global company’s according to the Reputation Institute, and analyze its Twitter networks pre and post-the KitKat/palm oil scandal. My gut tells me that Twitter has a far greater role to play in CSR crisis communications than any other type of CSR comms in terms of stewarding brand value.

-       Depth: I’m having a hard time figuring out how much is too much versus too little—the reason why I’m focusing on Interbrand’s Global Green Brands is that it allows me to pick the best performers across multiple industries, which is potentially more interesting from a strategic point of view. But I’m concerned it might be too much to dive into multiple companies. I’m not sure yet.

-       Measurement: what does it mean for a CSR communications platform to be “effective”? I’m being fairly literal about this—does Twitter help companies interact with folks they wouldn’t otherwise reach, and does that dialogue involve mission-critical topics? There’s probably more.