What is with my obsession with bikes and why do I veer into urban transportation so much in my otherwise more sustainable business and corporate social responsibility-focused writing and social network sharing?  Being interviewed for a recent GOOD piece on the corporate sponsorship opportunities for bike share programs got me thinking…

Women, urban biking and sustainable business are the ultimate intersection of who I am, the work I do and my hope to make a long-term contribution to the sustainability movement.

Who I am: I am practical, efficient, outdoor-active, curious, and Midwestern-born and raised (I’m guessing that’s where the practical comes from).

The work I do: My core expertise is marketing to women, which to me means the understanding of how they make decisions and become engaged with companies. In 2008, my personal lifestyle led me to identify and develop work that connected the women’s market with what I REALLY loved – sustainable business .

How I hope to contribute to movement scale change: I am absolutely driven to use my knowledge about women – as consumers and business leaders – to move sustainability forward.  Riding my bike around Seattle and realizing the difference it  can make if more people can be persuaded to bike in cities leads me back to women as the key. They influence one another, they draw in their kids and partners, they spread the word about how fun it is, the form community… and, I believe in their sustainability power as do-ers, business thinkers, and leaders, beyond measure.

That is why I Tweet on urban biking related topics, why I am passionate about connecting corporate responsibility with opportunities like bike share programs, and why I am on a Bicycle Urbanism panel here in Seattle in late June. It is not all that I am or study, but it is my root.

So, what is YOUR personal sustainability driver?

I’m developing a blog series on this topic (what personal moment or story connects you with your work in sustainable business or corporate social responsibility?).  I would love to include your tales, so please comment or email me to share yours. The less obvious the connection, the better story is, so don’t be shy!

Now remember, the emphasis on relationship building, influence leveraging and general communications tools is not a PR play but is self-reported by the professionals in the BCCCC study. These are the facts, Jack, and they are worth consideration.

So, what does this mean for a company in the process of developing or recruiting corporate citizenship professionals?

1)    Some familiarity with, and hopefully a passion for, using a social channel or two, should be a job requirement.

2)    The company’s commitment to an investment in supporting a social culture should be firm and clear (for both internal and external stakeholders).

3)    Social media capacity issues (like time and the staff to manage it) should be addressed by shuffling or retiring other, perhaps outdated, communications tools.

4)    Content, in its many forms –and whether created or curated by the corporate citizenship leader – is part and parcel of any social strategy. A Facebook page or Twitter stream cannot engage, build trust and communicate without it.  In fact, Social@Ogilvy just published a great piece in Fast Company, Is Content the New Currency?. that more than makes that case  – not the least of which is this: that content “buys” earned trust.

Doing the above will help you find, keep and support your future leadership. Make sure social media is something your corporate citizenship pros know.

…for developing thought leadership.
…for humanizing complex topics.
…for curating the amazing amount of great sustainability content from others that exists.
…for (like the traditional brands mentioned in the Adweek piece) leveraging typically B2C strategies in the name of movement scale change (and triple bottom line business results).

Brands like Patagonia (94K Twitter followers) and Unilever (29K Twitter followers) use social channels for both sharing thought leadership (B2B) and consumer engagement (B2C) in their respective industries.  They’ve cast a wider net to reach many more people with their processes, failures, community stories and successes.

What knowledge do you have to add to such a sustainability knowledge base? Now’s the time.

The excitement around this project makes me think green building technology could help increase interest in sustainable business practices overall. Let me know what you think.

In order to make social media work for sustainability’s sake, you have to see it as a long-term investment. You’ve got to truly believe you have personal or collective business wisdom to share that will forward the broader sustainable movement – even if that happens only one follower at a time. You must trust that there will be a payoff for spending hours on content development and relationship building. And, you must be strategic about spreading that knowledge and starting conversations, even without a well-defined end result. In fact, one thing not many social media experts or books emphasize enough is that you need to embrace the unknown and adapt to not being in control.

If that doesn’t get you thinking, social media guru (he actually deserves the title) Mitch Joel just posted a piece that hits the nail on the head a bit more soundly. He writes about how and why so many small businesses find failure in their social media attempts.  His closing point:

“Don’t kid yourself, social media works. In fact, all media works… you just have to do the hard work of figuring out how to make it work for you. There are no silver bullets.”

His words may be all the more true for the long-term vision of sustainability-focused businesses, in that they especially need to rely on the community and momentum of “tribes” of like-minded people to make change.  So, read Joel’s post to evaluate the benefits of diving into social media yourself. In the meantime, know this:

1)    Paying attention to building relationships and trust over time is critical. Do not bother with social media if you don’t understand that.

2)    Making an investment in social network engagement (which includes content strategy) – if you decide to move forward – will absolutely be worth the time and money, and will benefit your business, your community, your industry and perhaps most importantly, the broader sustainability movement.

Take deliberate steps to socialize your business and where you end up will be unimaginable miles from where you start. Be ready and open to an incredible journey, and trust that what you have to share will reach and deeply serve its best audiences for a greater, more sustainable good.

Two recent award announcements got me thinking about an untapped communications opportunity for corporate sustainability. One was the announcement of CR Magazine’s 2013 list of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens , and the other was the “honor roll” finalist list from green marketing strategist and eco-packaging company, GXT Green. The CR Magazine list, according to the press release, “documents 298 data points of disclosure and performance measures—harvested from publicly available information in seven categories: environment, climate change, employee relations, human rights, governance, finance, and philanthropy.” On the other hand, it is unclear how the GXT honor roll finalists were identified or evaluated (and, in any case, their process cannot compete with the ever more stringent measurements considered by CR Magazine’s process). The two awards represent very different stories about the growth and development of sustainability in businesses. So, which approach means most?

Does the world need to hear more stories about corporations making these strides or to hear more of the stories of human beings within big companies, organizations and municipalities (both NYC Mayor Bloomberg and Seattle Mayor McGinn are on the GXT list) pushing and pulling for change from within? The truth is that even though both are important, the change agents within the companies are the unsung heroes of sustainable business progress. Unlike corporations, their  experiences and successes are the ones that offer more emotion and give us more to connect with. They quite literally humanize this big, complex movement toward sustainability, making the whole concept more accessible to a broader range of both citizens and business decision-makers.

It may be that I’m extra passionate about the topic, having recently talked with Susan Hunt Stevens about the employee advocates she meets in the process of her work with Practically Green’s sustainability engagement solution. Or, it could be because I’m extremely proud of my sister who is a determined and self-appointed green team initiator (and nurturer) – in addition to her senior analyst job – in just one small corporate office location of a huge global financial services company. And, what of Jen Jordan, the recycling coordinator for the city of Iowa City, or John R. Connolly, an At-Large Boston City Councilor (who are both on the GXT list) along with the two aforementioned more famous Mayors? What are their stories? What compels, if not propels, these men and women to commit to such change?

Whether it is in the job description or not, the internal, non-executive level people working within Best Corporate Citizen winners like AT&T, The Gap and Campbell Soup Company, are initiating, driving and making changes happen that lead to these corporate awards. Spreading the news of stories like that about one person leading carbon footprint change at a Tennessee grocery chain, for instance, or another person tending to operational efficiencies for a manufacturing plant in South Dakota, does something more than elevate their company’s brand and connection with local communities. The collection of all such stories helps make internal sustainability change agency the norm. If we sing about these heroes a bit more, perhaps they can find one another across the globe, form an informal “club” and build support networks for more.

There are so many unsung sustainability heroes! What are we waiting for?

Sustainable business has no room for provincial communications.  Yet, very few of the companies we need to hear about now are prioritizing or taking the risk to write, speak or share their brilliance with the broader public and social media sphere. How much more should these businesses expect than a good mention in their local paper? A lot more.

No matter how small its city of origin, any idea or innovation that contributes to sustainability should be treated as gold and could benefit from being nationally shared and discussed. The point is to make sustainable business the norm. The more it is talked or written about, the more others can learn, and the better off we will all be.

Forget Provincialism

What if Patagonia saw itself only as a climbing company and outdoor apparel retailer for customers in its homebase northern California region? Yvon Chouinard would not be the revered sustainability pioneer he is, the one who built the thriving clothing brand while also forging incredible partnerships with competitors and changing entire industries (like textiles). He has written and given interviews to help educate businesses beyond Patagonia brand borders.  In the same way, what if Ray C. Anderson, with his personal conviction to transition Interface to sustainable ways, had kept his head down, made the company the best and never written down his experiences or lessons learned? We don’t have to worry about it, because in his too-short lifetime he did write books, and give presentations and interviews, that inspired all sorts of business leaders to climb “Mount Sustainability.”

Though they didn’t need to, these two sustainable business gurus realized that what they were onto was significant and they let it take them where it would – much beyond their own industries.

Share Your Wisdom, Broadly

You are already thinking, talking and writing about your ideas, whether for your own site, your executive team presentations or your marketing collateral. And, the only way sustainability can really take hold in business is if those who have new ideas or notice patterns (even if in only one very narrow topic area) bother to document their wisdom, and share it. Social media offers some incredible ways to amplify it all.  Three simple ways to move past communications provincialism include:

Creating content: Consider developing a blog. This need not be an arduous writing task for the CEO alone. Instead, think of it as an editorial process, where a communications team take responsibility for curating a steady flow, sharing link suggestions, or developing videos and articles that reflect the smarts of the company as a sustainability resource.

Using social media: Pick a social network or two. (LinkedIn and Twitter are great places to start for sharing business-to-business wisdom, especially). Invest time in identifying influencers and finding the types of conversations worth joining. Then, strategically build your engagement levels with even a few people to develop an active and interested follower base. The key: by sharing great links along the way, you build trust, and the content your organization does publish in the longer run will more likely be well received – and re-shared.

Giving webinars or speaking: Once you’ve tended to the above, you will have a solid platform from which to expand your reach. Audiences will want to hear more from you, so look for ways to participate in webinars. You will obviously reach bigger audiences by doing them, and, paired with occasional offline speaking events, your in-person presence will only help humanize your wisdom for even more sustainability-interested business people.

I could go on and on (and people who know me will attest to this). The provincial communications perspective is old-fashioned and counterproductive for today’s times. If you sense that you are onto something that could contribute to the greater sustainable business movement, it is your responsibility to do it!

There will always be many, many companies doing incredible work and many leaders with amazing ideas who remain unable to risk vulnerability and/or commit time to writing, “socializing” their content or speaking. If you are intrigued enough to be reading this, you’ve likely had a niggling thought about sharing your own ideas with a broader audience. The sustainability movement needs both your wisdom and your bold step into the public sphere as an example.

Sustainability professionals these days regularly find themselves preaching to the choir.  As with the development of any new frontier, the leading edge of innovators can initially be so thrilled to find a few like-minded thinkers that they seek each other out, attend the same conferences, join the same LinkedIn discussion groups and generally find themselves in a comfort zone.  I must admit that I am one who has experienced the too-comfortable zone.  The thing is, if we aren’t careful, we will create an exclusive and unproductive club rather than collectively forward a movement.  Not good. As the Bainbridge Graduate Institute’s Gifford Pinchot III put it, while moderating a recent Seattle City Club conversation on the triple bottom line, we can easily preach to the sustainability choir, and we can probably leave the tone deaf alone.  But, what can we do to reach those who don’t realize they are humming along to the tune?

Jim Hanna, Starbucks Director of Environmental Affairs, referred to reaching past the choir several times during the evening’s discussion, but he framed the problem within the context of the good old bell curve.  From what he sees while out and about doing his job, collaborating with other coffee industry players and speaking at conferences, there’s a real need to focus on the middle of that curve in corporate sustainability adoption.  Jim asks how we can educate and persuade the next cohort of corporations to invest and commit to planet and people as well as profits?  What stories can we tell, and how can we tell them in ways that will really reach still-resistant business minds?

One company that has been very successful telling its stories, and shifting the thinking of competitors and other industries alike, is Patagonia.  Vincent Stanley, that company’s Acting Vice President of Marketing and co-author with Yvon Chouinard of The Responsible Company was on the Seattle panel.  And, while making sure to point out that Patagonia is by no means perfect with regard to sustainability, Stanley noted that they learned early on that as long as they really talked with customers, and took that risk, they could pursue new, more responsible ways of doing business. And, they’ve done it again and again.  Along the way, by forcing the issues and considering alternative approaches, they’ve learned a ton about their business.

Reach past the choir:  Tell accessible “learning from the journey and succeeding” stories like Patagonia’s.

In addition to stories of external success and reaching customers, there’re also the powerful stories of retention and recruitment that come out of corporations like Starbucks and McKinstry (represented on the Seattle panel by their Executive Vice President, David Allen).  The most powerful ways to move sustainability through a company are by leveraging the internal drivers. Having employees engaged with and excited by sustainability is key to Starbucks’ success in finding the best, according to Hanna.  Allen, as well, has no doubt that McKinstry employees stay loyal and are easier to recruit because of their sustainable practices.  By focusing on and integrating sustainability throughout their business, across functions, each employee feels they are a part of something bigger.

Reach past the choir: Counter industry norms and talk about your successes.

And then there’s the exciting story of the Bullitt family owned Sleeping Lady Mountain Resort, perhaps less recognized outside of the Pacific Northwest, but doing incredible behind-the-scenes work to influence the entire hospitality sector. General Manager, Paula Helsel told the Seattle audience how that resort had proved a point by countering the norms. For example, though hospitality peers warned them away from buying local produce as too expensive and not worth the effort, the lack of Cisco trucks unloading every day has resulted in a smaller carbon footprint and has delighted restaurant guests with fresh offerings.  And, just as the guests and local community respond to the various sustainability-related efforts of Sleeping Lady, so does the hospitality industry. Sleeping Lady regularly gets involved in educating others by sharing their experiences.

To mix metaphors: if the middle bell curve corporations could hear the above examples in full, would they be convinced to turn their casual humming into full-on choir singing?

Two more points came up during the City Club discussion that, if tended to, could make a big difference in reaching those not yet in the sustainability choir. They include:

1. Business school integration.  Whole system strategies, the type that deliver on the triple bottom line’s people, planet and profit goals, comes when the leadership pipeline brings that sort of thinking to its future corporate employers. An MBA program class or two on “sustainable business” or “corporate responsibility” is not enough.  Sustainability must be integrated and taught across functions, to accounting, finance, marketing and operations specialists alike.  And, as someone who has done the research and founded the first school to offer just such a Sustainable MBA, Bainbridge Graduate Institute’s (BGI) Gifford Pinchot III knows this to be true.  Like Sleeping Lady’s Helsel, he is now regularly consulting within his industry. Business schools across the country are seeking the help of BGI on how to integrate the sustainable approach that many of their students and the smartest of employers are demanding.

2. Digital transparency. With so much potential for spreading sustainability successes and practices, as well as the potential for tripping up the businesses that are not being transparent, Starbucks’ Hanna sees social media as a game changer.  A fair number of big corporations are being forced into the transparency they’ve never faced before.  BP Oil is but one example of a corporation very publicly called out for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and their lack of responsibility in preventing it or cleaning it up. There are now many more examples of consumers and industry influencers demanding the truth, through both immediate and longer-term social methods. These social-empowered people are absolutely changing corporate behavior in the process.  (See my Storify of the recent SXSW #ageofdamage session which was led by David Jones of Havas. The tweets, links and examples all tell the story of how corporations have had to learn, and fast.)

Today, there are some incredible examples of corporations setting the sustainability and triple bottom line bar.  And, their employees have stories to tell of their engagement and loyalty.  There are also inspiring and passionate corporate leaders who are dedicated to the movement and giving of their time to spread their knowledge. To reach past the choir members and connect with the middle of that sustainability integration bell curve, our charge is to write those stories, share other links that tell those stories, and help “arm” anyone we know heading into or connected with a business school with the tools they need to persuade and change.

I am co-presenting a Seattle GoGreen Conference lab session (April 24) on a similar topic if you’d like to bring your questions about how your business can contribute to the cause, and soon!

I do a lot of work around the specifics of Twitter and relationship building, so will use that network in particular to demonstrate some of my findings over the years:

SLOW DOWN

Take it slow. The idea is not to do a lot of posting in the first few months. Instead, spend that one or two hours a week you’ve allocated to social media to do searches on your topics of interest and start to follow the people who are sharing links in those areas. It is worth noting that when I mention “topics of interest,” I mean the two to three key examples you have filtered down to that involve the most strategic conversations your business wants to be part of. This may involve a painful whittling from all the amazing things your business is brilliant in, I realize. Just do it.

RETWEET (aka RT)

Once you’ve identified a few topics, follow those streams of conversations and start to RT the posts that link to articles you find extra informative. When you have an authentic response, try to add a few words of your own. For example, you might add “thought-provoking” to the RT of a link about new research. Then, do more. If there is a particular writer who covers the industry that fits with your selected topics, follow that person closely and use their Twitter handle when you post about their work. That’s right. Take the extra step to note the name of the article’s author and include the appropriate handle in your RT. Or, if an article you’ve come across via a Tweeted link mentions a Twitter-active researcher, add “research from @famousscientist” when you RT.

As you work through this process you build trust, and you’ll see people RT-ing and thanking you in return.

START CURATING AND CREATING

After getting a start on relationship building, you can begin to consider your content strategy. Realize that this will include both curation (finding and sharing great content you know will be applicable to your selected topic conversations) and creation (blog posts, videos, images that you develop yourself and that reflect expertise and thought leadership in your industry). In other words, planning a “content strategy” doesn’t mean your whole company has to start writing unique blog posts weekly, but someone or some team of people should keep a look out for good research and bits to share from other people. In addition, that team will want to develop some type of editorial calendar for the organization. Manage both the internal processes and external expectations of what and how often you share right out of the gate, especially:

Notice what sorts of things you tend to respond to and want to share. Then, think about how you can produce a similar mix or style of content.

ENGAGE

Do not post and walk away from your Twitter dashboard. Do not notice a RT, think “how nice,” and forget about it. Do not see yourself included in some sort of #followfriday list and leave your computer without a posting a thank you. These are among the different types of connection opportunities you will get, so monitor your feeds and conversations and act like a real person. Show that you’ve noticed and appreciate a share or mention.

If you post and someone RTs the post (often within the next hour, as has been my anecdotal experience), thank them right away. If you have added to the #sustainability conversation, for example, keep track of that stream for a little while after you’ve posted and see if anyone else contributes something complementary to your post. If you do see that, say hello and RT them. As well, when you are mentioned in someone’s #followfriday or #ff list, it is common courtesy (and shows relationship building smarts!) to RT. You can delete your handle if need be to stay within the character limit, with a “Thx” or some such abbreviated sentiment included. Then, watch how others interact around #ff or #ecomonday, for example, to get ideas for the next time.

DIVE DEEPER

In addition, consider taking the opportunity to go deeper and off-network to engage. When someone tweets a link to their own blog post, and you take time to read that post AND comment, your gesture will be noticed and is likely to be returned within your own blog post comments at a later date. Social engagement and relationship building don’t occur solely on the networks themselves. You get bonus points for venturing off the social media dashboards and over to that old-fashioned world of web sites and blogs.

USE WHAT YOU LEARN

Though what I’ve written about here is Twitter-focused, the idea is to get more practice and comfort with this type of back and forth of “social” engagement, in general. It will translate to some degree for any other channel you choose to participate in. LinkedIn is becoming more business content and conversation friendly, for one. I’d also keep an eye on Google+ and any of the other networks where your very particular audience of influencers engages already (that could be Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and so on).

And, don’t shy away from the cheerleading and the informal, friendly discussions that go on in your particular circles. Instead, figure out a way to get comfortable doing a bit of that yourself. If someone posts that they are honored to have been appointed to a Board position or to have been selected for a key speaking engagement, and you have already forged some type of relationship, go ahead and Tweet: “Go Nancy” or “So psyched for you.”  If you truly feel that way about your Twitter friend, it will come across with authenticity and appreciation – which could well be returned when you’ve got something exciting to announce yourself.

Finally, think influence, not numbers. When you invest the time in relationship and trust building on social networks, it will be the influence levels – not the count – of the people who re-share your news that give it the most impact with more strategic audiences. Without that front-end time and research investment, your posts may technically reach a lot of people, but very few who see them will care or share.

Denise Lee Yohn is a brand building expert who has been blogging, speaking and teaching clients how to “operationalize their brands” for twenty-five years.  We first met in 2009 by way of Twitter and, though yet to meet, we have long valued each other’s perspectives and learned from one another’s specialties.  Recently, she has been focusing in on the topic of corporate social responsibility (CSR) with an interest in shifting the conversation for brands toward creating shared value (CSV). Following is summary of a conversation we had about just that:

Andrea: There are always questions and fine-tuning about the language communications professionals use in talking about things like sustainability or corporate social responsibility.  It starts with the words used to name the topic. Are there problems in using the term CSR, and how does creating brand strategy around CSV, instead, change things?

Denise: Not to knock CSR, but I see an opportunity to shift people from seeing responsible business practices as something they “have” to do (as in – it is your responsibility) into something they “want” to do, where a business can create shared value. Business leaders may be more motivated by a positive creating shared value instead of having to work their way back from a negative, as in “giving back.”

Especially in recessionary times, smaller companies may feel resource-constrained and think that they will “get around to CSR when we can.”  Instead, they should be seeing the opportunity, and seeing CSV as something they want to do – proactively.

Andrea: Since I’m focusing in a bit on nonprofits in my current work, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what nonprofit communicators can learn from corporate communicators.

Denise: It starts with understanding what great brands do.  They think big, but sweat the small stuff. If you take Apple, Amazon or Chipotle, for example, you see that it starts inside. Those companies all have a strong corporate culture, they focus on employee engagement and also excel at customer engagement.  Because nonprofits are mission-driven and focused on the communities they serve, they understand most of this too.  The disconnect, or where nonprofits can learn from great brands, is in the customer, or in their case the “donor,” experience.  Of course, nonprofits are especially resource-constrained these days, and that can result in a lack of attention to the way the brand is expressed and experienced. But the details are so worth attention.

A great example of a nonprofit that does get the details of brand expression and donor experience right is To Write Love On Her Arms . This nonprofit works to help young adults who are depressed and possibly suicidal. TWLOHA branding is amazing. Their messaging is consistent, the experiences they promote (music, events, videos) are targeted very directly to their specific audience, and all of this combines to do a great job engaging people with the brand.

The Starbucks Create Jobs for USA  program in partnership with the Opportunity Finance Network is a great example of a corporate/nonprofit relationship that is consistent with brand.  Starbucks realizes it is dependent on the communities where its stores are located, so helping local businesses stay healthy helps their store customers. The Create Jobs for USA effort reflects a social consciousness around the shared purpose of helping community members get or stay on their feet.

And sure, corporations could just “check off” that they have done their cause marketing as though it were a one-time and isolated task.  Would it make sense for a company that serves young adult males to promote a breast cancer cause?  No. Instead, when corporations partner with nonprofits with which they have true share value, they tap a significant opportunity to advance the cause.

Andrea: Finally – and maybe we should have started with this – I’m interested in the example you use with your clients and speaking audiences that gets to the heart of what brand really is. From my experience, it still seems to be fairly common for business decision-makers to think of brand as a logo, tagline and color palette for their web site. How do you train their brains to think beyond that?

Denise: I typically talk about Apple, because it is ubiquitous – and it is safe to say that no one is an Apple fan because of the logo.  People are Apple fans because of exquisitely designed products and incredible store experience, among so many other things that have nothing to do with the logo. THAT is what Apple stands for.  They could change their logo and no one would care.  The same goes for Nike. If you notice, they have backed off their swoosh logo in the past few years.  It is so clear what they stand for, that their customers don’t need to see the swoosh to know a product, store or experience is Nike brand.

For more on Denise’s perspective on corporate responsibility and brand-building, see her post on Level 5 Relevance.

*Denise recently did a podcast interview with me on the sustainability-conscious buyer, the challenges corporations face in pursuing corporate responsibility and what social media means for better communicating around all of it.