Guest Post by Elaine Cohen, Joint CEO of BeyondBusiness Ltd
So you wrote a CR report! Big deal! What next? Make it BUZZ.
The thing about writing CSR reports is that they take a helluvalotta energy. The reporting process takes months, involves many internal and external stakeholders, and creates a reporting frenzy in the organization which bypasses none but the most unengaged employees. In theory, that is. Sometimes reporting is an intensive process for a just small group of individuals in the organization. Whatever the format, it’s intense. There’s a build-up. A deadline. Many hurdles to defuse. (is that as mixed metaphor?) Then. It happens. You send the report to print (or upload it to your fancy new html flash mini-site for viewing by the general public) and that’s it. B-I-G sigh of relief. Mop your brow. Stare into space and feel the release. Off to the bar for a celebratory drink. Sit back and wait for the compliments to start flowing in.
I suspect this is how it happens in most organizations. The report is a certain end in itself, an achievement to be recognized, a tangible result of months of effort, challenge and hard, hard work. Once it’s done, a nicely deserved pat-on-the-back can be justified.
Or not.
Because the report is just a milestone . It’s not an end in itself and should not enjoy splendid isolation from csr processes in the business, or from the reporting continuum. For the day you finish work on one report, is the day you start work on the next. So what do you do when you have published your report? Here are 27 things (disclosure: I didn’t count them. But as list journalism is so popular, 27 seemed like a good number – actually I wish it was my age):
Public Relations: This should start before your report is published. Prior to the report publication date, certain facts, figures and stories that are worthy of highlight can be discerned. You could plan a PR build-up to a report publication using focused teasers, so that your PR mileage starts early, publish a headline referring to some worthy achievement soon-to-be revealed in the CSR report, or respond to a current issue in the press by referring to your upcoming report. Once your report is published, you could:
- Hold a press conference
- Issue a press release to ReportAlert.info
- Get your report hosted on CorporateRegister.com
- Tweet it, Retweet it, Retweet Retweets, #FollowFriday it, #EcoMonday it, #SustainabilitySaturday it, Twitpic the cover, you get it. right ?
- Announce it on Justmeans.com, DevelopmentCrossing , CSRwire, LinkedIn, Facebook and anywhere else
- Get it added to the GRI Reports list (if it’s a GRI report)
- Use the GRI’s new report announcement service (if it’s a GRI report)
- Send posts to all the available social media
- Make a short video about the report and post it to YouTube
- Put up a slideshare presentation
- Blog about your report
- Tell your friends and family
- Add a thumbnail of your report cover to all Company business cards
Engage Internal stakeholders: As soon as the report is published (and ideally some time prior to publication) you need to brief your employees. They need to know (a) the report exists and (b) details of the content, so that they can be effective reporting champions in their interface with all external stakeholders including customer and suppliers. There are many ways to do this:
- post a CEO letter on the corporate intranet
- hold communications meetings to present and discuss the report
- send an Executive Summary to all employees
- supply a Q&A brief for assistance in how to respond to feedback received
- share a video presentation for employees by the reporting team to be screened on company plasmas
- hold a report quiz in your intranet and offer a prize for winners.
Whatever the form of internal communication, a key advantage can be gained by seeking employee feedback and generating dialogue, rather than just creating awareness. Seek responses, insights, suggestions for improvement, address issues that arise, and log all interactions for your next report. Make sure your employees know what you expect of them in promoting the report.
Oh, and don’t forget to THANK the employees who contributed to the report. Hold a report party. Order in a few tons of Chunky Monkey. A beer or two. Say thank you.
Engage External stakeholders: As with employees, the more external stakeholders you engage after your report is published, the more trust you will create, the more useful insights you will receive. Group your external stakeholders into meaningful categories (perhaps the ones you engaged in your materiality assessment, if you did this) and select the best way to approach them – personal letters, surveys, on-line polls, panel meetings, one-on-one discussions, initiated discussions on social media sites. Several reporters issue a hard copy to wide groups of stakeholders (sorry environmentalists!) and include a feedback questionnaire. Encourage responses, offer an incentive to provide feedback, a small prize, a daily supply of Chunky Monkey until the next report, for example. Engage your business partners in promoting the report – especially those, such as customers or suppliers, who you may have profiled in the report. They can also be ambassadors for your reporting efforts which support their own PR efforts.
Whatever the form of external activity, a key advantage can be gained by seeking feedback and generating dialogue, rather than just creating awareness. Seek responses, insights, suggestions for improvement, address issues that arise, and log all interactions for your next report. (You may have noticed I repeated that paragraph. Intentionally. Why? I thought it was important and you might have skipped it…. haha ..you cant fool ME!)
On-line presentation: Your online report presentation is critical to creating awareness and generating engagement. One Company who specializes in getting your report effectively on-lined is Nexxar.com. See their recent analysis of on-line visibility, accessibility and interactivity of CR reports. This of course has to be planned and established in advance, but the benefits are gained after the report is published. Make sure you have someone in your team responsible for gathering, collating and analyzing the stats and relevant input from this process. Some reporters include an on-line survey on their HTML site, some have a forum for responses.
Conferences and seminars: Take the opportunity to present your report at the many many international and local conference, workshop and venues where people talk and learn about CR. Talk about the challenges in the reporting process, not just about the report itself. If you are Cadbury, and you give out slabs of Dairy Milk together with your report, you are sure to get strong interest. (it worked with me!)
Reporting awards:
- Enter the CRRA Awards if you are anywhere in the world (it helps to be SOMEwhere).
- Enter the CERES awards if you are in the US, Mexico or Canada.
- Enter the ACCA Awards in the UK and many different countries around the world
- Even if you don’t win, your report gains exposure.
Ensure your report creates positive impact
Finally, if you really want your report to be a BIG HIT and create true positive impact, you need to do something really creative and engaging. Here are some off-the-wall ideas:
- Ask Madonna to do a benefit concert called Like a Virgin – our CR Report
- Give a lottery ticket to each person who sends feedback and see who becomes a millionaire
- Get Disney to produce a movie entitled : Mickey Mouse and the CR report
- Ask Coca Cola to do a special edition CR Report Coke just for your company
- Photoshop Barack Obama engrossed in page 48 of your report and publish to Flickr
- Ask Ophrah Winfrey to do a prime-time show called: My husband betrayed me because of a CR report
- Ask Al Gore to do a CR report roadshow for you called The Convenient Truth
- Have Twitter put up your CR report banner on that page which comes up 24 times a day “there are too many tweets, please try again soon”
- Wrap your corporate Christmas gifts to clients in pages of your report
- Create a CR report meditation room in your head office, and have the Dalai Lama come meditate
- Have McDonalds create a CR Report Happy Meal
- Create an iphone app for your report which places calls to stakeholders reminding them to read it
- Hide a bunch of CR reports in non-obvious places and run a viral cause-marketing campaign promising a modest contribution to Oxfam for each one found
- And you guessed it… Have B&J produce a special edition CR Report Chunky Monkey flavor with extra chunks and fewer monkeys.
And now that you know, I hope to see lots of CR reports BUZZING from here on in….
