In just 1 hour, the Carbon Outreach crew is driving our Hertz Prius to Chicago from Brooklyn for some great events in the Chicago sustainability community.
We're proud to support green companies and organizations in New York and Chicago, including Green Festival on 22-23 May and Mindful Metropolis's Green Carpet Gala on 21 May. We'll also be doing some filming for our upcoming YouTube series on 'Green business and PR' to be announced in June.
Why are we interested, you ask? We got inspired! In a conversation with Stacey Monk this week at Epic Change (an amazing non-profit that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for kids in Tanzania) we learned about how they're at it again.
This time, they have a goal of $50K for @MamaLucy, the head of a multifaceted school in Tanzania. Funds raised will be invested in support of Mama Lucy Kamptoni, a remarkable grassroots changemaker in Tanzania who once sold chickens and used her income to build a primary school that now provides a high-quality education to over 400 children in Arusha. Her next goal, which To Mama With Love seeks to fund, is to build a boarding facility on campus so that every child who attends her school has a place to call home.
For this, they started ToMamaWithLove.org and associated #ToMamaWithLove especially for American Mother's Day. What better way to support your green friends and mom than donate?
Since there are so many wonderful green moms out there, I've partnered with Global Green Pals, a green toy company on 20 May (@carbonoutreach's birthday) to give all my birthday presents to this extremely worthy cause. Charity Water started raising money through birthday party fundraising several years ago, and I think it's a great idea to feel good about turning a year older and re-routing your presents to people that really need them.
Just as Earth Month ended, the BP Oil Spill has hit the environmental community with a blindsided fury. Across Twitter conversations, Facebook updates and embeds and YouTube videos and replies, the world is watching the next actions of BP. In reaction, BP says it's doing as much as it can and is actively engaging in crisis communications.
For us, crisis communications is a sub-set of Public Relations designed to protect and defend an individual, company or organization from facing a public challenge to its reputation. Social media has clearly changed how companies handle negative publicity. As Brian Solis noted in 2008 in "Crisis Communications for the Social Web",
"For the first time, we have the ability to identify and address potential crises as they surface. And not only do we have the ability to engage with people to address their grievances or discontent, we can also learn from each engagement and feed the corresponding lessons, experiences, and criticisms back into the sales, service, and product development departments to change everything for the better."
Social media tools like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are multifaceted and valuable tools for PR & Marketing. Below, I focus on aspects of social media that BP utilized for crisis communications, as well as #CrisisCamp, an international, mostly-online community that's coming to BPs rescue via Google mapping and Twitter tools.
Though the main focus is on the #OilSpill, this helps even the greenest and well-meaning company come back from public mistakes, including but not limited to, negative feedback from customers or disgruntled former employees.
The Good:
BP as a company isn't completely heartless. Rather, they're trying to show they're doing something to stop millions of gallons of oil spill from their underground drilling facility. In social media terms, they've done good things, including
Stepping-up within the first few days (though arguably still late)
They've admitted responsibility and are talking about what their next actions are, says a recent blogpost
BP has finally started updating it's Facebook page (previously updating it around February 2010)
BP has established a telephone number for oil spill related claims. The call-in number is +1 800.440.0858, and it's available 24/7
The Bad:
Things BP could improve upon. Before BP shares were so seriously devalued, could more time or money spent on infrastructure to listen to employees have helped this situation? Imagine if you knew about problems within your business before wasting time and resources.
Absent or anti-social, social media outreach is a symptom of a larger problem--internal communications processes must be equally as flawed.
Publishing all @BP_America press release tweets IN CAPITAL LETTERS before 28 April. To the Twitter community, CAPITAL LETTERS is like SHOUTING
They're Twitter account only follows 9 accounts, mostly government agencies like @Whitehouse. This shows their disregard for those actively involved and who have the most at stake--especially leaders in the Gulf Coast region.
Not clearly informing their audience about the exact steps they were taking through some kind of video or picture content. Rather, agencies like Al Jazeera English made videos describing the problem.
The Ugly:
BP has been highly invested in petroleum since the early 20th century. Needless to stay, it's moving slowly towards environmental sustainability, and beside social media, there are many ways that it's imagine could be improved. Maybe the most important step would actually be to invest more highly in renewables and improve it's transparency--because companies that don't commit themselves to relentlessly understanding and engaging with their consumers--are bound to fail.
Using social media as a 1-way platform for communications; Twitter & Facebook should not be used like billboards because PR is now a 2-way conversation
Only briefly mentioning other organizations and responding publicly via Twitter--In the most recent 20 tweets, just 5 mentioned other partner organizations helping to coordinate volunteers
Not recognizing the sentiments of individual Twitter users by replying publicly
BP has done little or no work on releasing footage of the problem and explaining exactly their solution
#CrisisCamp to the rescue
Co-Op style organizations like Crisis Commons are coming together over teleconference, wikisand in-person meetings called Crisis Camps to make solutions-oriented technologies. For instance, an Oil Spill Widget directing public and response organizations with vital information. Another important feature is their Grassroots Mapping Tool, which is in the process of happening. Follow the #ccoil feeds for all the developments. Another great feature is geo-tagged pictures via #oilreport and @oilreport, who are letting observers know exactly how to map the crisis.
Take away for green business:
This isn't the first time oil has spilled from a refinery or tanker. It hopefully will be the last. Either way, green and sustainability-focused companies can learn from the mistakes of other organizations and increase connections with consumers.
We certainly hope in the coming years and generations, business will use its power to enable government and society to think proactively about the triple bottom line--not only financial, but also environmental and social developments. Otherwise, we'll forever be crisis communicators.
