Sustainability and CSR Views on Twitter: A Pilot Study Analysis

Abstract:     
Social media platforms are surrounded by conversations, messages, and ideas about numerous subjects. Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are no exceptions in these discussions where collaboration, empowerment, and sharing are the key cores of these platforms. One of the most widely used social media sites is Twitter. Twitter is becoming a powerful tool for spreading information about CSR and Sustainability and for promoting conversations between users. This useful new media could help companies listen stakeholders’ priorities and engage them in conversations. This paper analyses the practice of twittering Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability issues, placing a special emphasis on who is leading the CSR and Sustainability discussions on Twitter, and what type of tweets (messages) are being communicated. A content analysis was made to the Twitter profile users who tweet about these topics during December 2010. Results shown that corporations are not taking advantage of this tool while tweeting CSR and Sustainability issues. It seems that companies and other users such as academia are still in its infancy at the moment of using Twitter for communicating and informing about CSR and Sustainability.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 16

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, sustainability, Twitter, social media, corporate communications

Accepted Paper Series