Social Media // Current

How Your Small Business Can Grab the Green Business Spotlight

This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert's views alone.

The green entrepreneurs I speak with every day have great stories to tell about their phenomenal work saving resources, cleaning our energy, and creating a better world. These stories do more than entertain; they get attention and bring in business. Telling your story is one thing, but making sure that it’s heard is another. Tools ranging from PR to Twitter can deliver your message, each with their pros and cons, and services like 3BL Media can amplify your story to reach more eyeballs and get noticed.

The first step is paring down your message to be crystal clear, making it as short and simple as possible. The value of clarity is often overlooked; clarity helps the message to stick, and also helps entrepreneurs to better understand their own business.

The next step is finding tools to deliver the message to the right eyes and ears. The tools to boost your business visibility include:

1. Blogging – Blogging doesn’t cost anything and can connect you to large numbers of people, but it does take time and it’s not for everyone. For blogging to attract an audience you need to post frequently, probably at least once a week. This may not sound like much, but the entrepreneurs I know are incredibly busy people.
2. Social networking –Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are free and potentially powerful ways of making connections, but they are also full of noise. The great hope is that your post will go viral, taking on a life of its own, but your content will usually need a big push to stand out and get noticed.
3. Partnering with media distributors – If you already have content and want it to reach more people, services like 3BL Media amplify your message through high profile distribution to a big chunk of the CSR world.
4. Ads – Ads on the internet can be highly targeted based on demographics of websites. An ad campaign does cost money, and the time to keep an eye on what is working, and not working.
5. Public relations – PR can be immensely powerful; getting others in the media to talk about you can provide credibility. It usually takes connections and time to make this happen, and the efforts of a paid professional.

For entrepreneurs working on tight budgets, free tools like blogging, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook can be very attractive. Small businesses are often so focused on their business and so cash strapped these days that they have little money for marketing. Free social networking tools can accomplish a lot and should be used as much as possible, but they can’t always do the whole job on their own. Public relations efforts provide a big boost with the right investment of time and money, although some businesses find it’s more than they can invest today.

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/glenn-croston/starting-and-growing-green-businesses/how-your-small-business-can-grab-green-busiThis blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that... more

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In Corporate Social Responsibility: The "Real Time" of Social Media

Few things have changed faster than the way we communicate. Coupled with the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or green movement, there has been an explosion of information available about how and what companies and organizations are doing to improve society and the environment.

During the past year, at least three major events have influenced how communications relate to CSR:

1) The new administration in Washington is focused on volunteerism, green-collar jobs, alternative energy and other CSR issues.

2) Bernie Madoff and the “collapse” of Wall Street spotlighted (once again) the need for greater transparency and corporate governance.

3) Consumers are demanding information about what the companies from which we buy our goods and services are doing to have a positive impact on society, improve the environment, and in general “save the world.” Companies are finally starting to be held accountable and responsible for the impact and influence they can have to affect change, and they realize the need to communicate it. From a media and PR perspective, this presents both opportunities and challenges.

Any company can issue a press release talking about all the good they’re doing, and consequently greenwashing — and a lack of authenticity has become almost epidemic. It seems every brand wants to capture the green consumer.

The media challenge: To communicate effectively in ways that a growing, “green-focused” audience, consisting of varied demographics, is responsive to and can trust. Authenticity must absolutely be obvious. The age-old, traditional press release isn’t what it used to be. Yes, there’s still a place for it in modern communications, but it’s become widely accepted that its impact is diminished.

Enter blogs and bloggers, videos, podcasts, and various commentaries … all new and different ways to reach an audience no longer receptive to traditional methods such as press releases. Combine this with issues that people are passionate about, that affect their lives and their children’s lives, such as corporate responsibility and sustainability … and that’s the mix that must be communicated. To address that, successful organizations have begun to realize that the value of delivering their messages, consistently in all different media formats, engages a passionate audience.

--an excerptFew things have changed faster than the way we communicate. Coupled with the Corporate... more