CONTEXT SPECIAL REPORT LinkedIn vs Twitter – which works best? Sustainability Social Media Ranking II Our first Sustainability Social Media members benefiting from an increasing menu Ranking published in 2018, looked of functions. LinkedIn is now the prime social media forum for business. at how companies use Twitter to communicate sustainability messages. Now we turn our attention to LinkedIn – asking the same questions: how are companies using Cisco topped that ranking, with the platform for sustainability, and who is regular posts, strong engagement doing it best? and a large influencer following. If you still think of LinkedIn as a contact list, you might be surprised at the level of content being How are companies using LinkedIn for posted, using features such as groups, followers, sustainability communications? And who is likes, comments and shares. You can also post winning? We set out to answer these questions long format articles, pictures and videos. following the massive response to our first Twitter report. LinkedIn has come a long way As well as ranking 100 companies’ use of since its origins, in 2003, as a network for LinkedIn, we compared the findings with professional connections and job searches. those from our Twitter survey, to find out Following a NY Stock Exchange listing in which platform is more effective for 2011, and acquisition by Microsoft in 2016, sustainability communications. LinkedIn has powered ahead to 575 million 1 CONTEXT SPECIAL REPORT www.contextsustainability.com About this report Only one company made no sustainability posts TYPES OF ACCOUNT on its corporate account. Sustainability Social Media Ranking II examines Forty seven sustainability leaders use their how 100 leading companies with strong personal accounts for sustainability posts. By sustainability reputations are using LinkedIn for far the most prolific poster is Mike Barry (until sustainability communications and engagement. recently of UK retailer Marks & Spencer). Mike 47 Our findings are based on a survey of posts made 390 posts over three months. The average spanning three months in the spring of 2019. posting frequency among the 47 active leaders 99 We selected 100 companies that are active in the was 17 posts over three months. sustainability conversation – 54 in the US, 41 in Only three of the 100 companies made posts on 3 Europe, and 5 in Asia Pacific. We dug into their dedicated sustainability accounts. We therefore LinkedIn activities and data, to see what was discounted these in our survey. working for them, and what was not. This produced our overall and sector rankings Our methodology – how we ranked for the most effective use of LinkedIn for companies sustainability communications. 52 We collected data from 100 companies, identifying Building on our earlier Twitter study, we now have their main corporate and sustainability leader 91 the data to answer a key social media question for LinkedIn accounts. Data was drawn from three sustainability teams - should we invest in LinkedIn months of posts in the spring of 2019. or Twitter? 33 Where LinkedIn did not show a full three months data, we extrapolated from the period available. How companies are using LinkedIn The success metrics we captured were: On LinkedIn, as on Twitter, companies can potentially employ three types of accounts: Posting frequency – the number of posts with Main account sustainability content (including shares of other Dedicated account 1. Main corporate account people’s posts) Personal account 2. Dedicated sustainability account Engagement – the number of likes and comments 3. Personal account of a sustainability leader received Of the 100 companies in our survey, 99 made Active listening – the number of times they at least one sustainability post on their main liked or commented on other member posts corporate account in the three-month survey (sustainability leader accounts only) period. BP headed the table with 114 posts. The average posting frequency for the 99 active accounts was 20 posts over three months. 2 CONTEXT SPECIAL REPORT www.contextsustainability.com FINDINGS Overall Top 10 BP heads our overall ranking with a OVERALL RANKING TOP 10 (positions out of 100) regular posting rate of 1.3 posts a day on its main corporate account, achieving Company Main Corporate Account Sustainability Leader Account an average 640 engagements per post. 1. BP BP came first without using a personal sustainability leader account. 2. Unilever Unilever is second with a posting rate 3. Marks & Spencer of 0.78 per day and an impressive 4. Procter & Gamble average 1,061 engagements per post. Like BP, Unilever did not use a personal 5. The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. sustainability leader account. 6. Merck Third place Marks & Spencer adopted 7. Diageo a very different strategy, relying mainly on their CSO Mike Barry’s personal 8. Google account. Mike made an impressive 9. Shell 4.3 posts per day while their corporate 10. Pfizer account made only five sustainability posts in three months. Overall Marks & Spencer achieved an average 120 engagements per post. All of the Top Ten are global multinationals comprising, two oil companies, two pharmaceutical companies, three FMCG companies, and one technology company. 3 CONTEXT SPECIAL REPORT www.contextsustainability.com FINDINGS Posting frequency Top 10 BP is the most frequent corporate poster with NUMBER OF POSTS (over 3 months) 144 over three months, followed by Merck with 95 and Unilever with 71. Top 10 Corporate accounts Top 10 Sustainability Leader Accounts Mike Barry (Marks & Spencer) is by far the most 1 BP 114 1 Mike Barry formerly Marks & 390 Spencer prolific of the sustainability leaders, making 2 Merck 95 a remarkable 390 posts in three months. Kate 2 Kate Brandt Google 42 Brandt (Google) is the second most consistent 3 Unilever 71 3 Bea Perez The Coca-Cola 35 poster with 42, and Bea Perez (Coca-Cola) is =4 Golden Agri-Resources 60 Company third with 35. =4 Mars, Inc. 60 =4 Al Iannuzzi The Estée Lauder 31 Companies Inc. 6 Diageo 59 =4 Christopher Stewart Olam International 31 7 Procter & Gamble 56 =4 Tony Milikin AB InBev 31 8 SAP 45 =4 Pia Cook IKEA Group 31 9 Colgate-Palmolive 43 8 Bertrand Swiderski Carrefour 23 guidance 10 Pfizer 42 9 Pablo Perversi Barry Callebaut 17 LinkedIn moves at a slower =10 Mary Engvall Cigna 13 pace, and posts garner more engagement than on Twitter. =10 Virginie Helias Procter & Gamble 13 This means, to be seen, you don’t necessarily need to post as frequently as you do on Twitter. We recommend making 2 to 3 posts per week, adapting content from your sustainability report and web-pages. When company news is slow, you can base posts on broader sustainability news and opinion. 4 CONTEXT SPECIAL REPORT www.contextsustainability.com FINDINGS Engagement Top 10 Unilever received the most engagements (likes NUMBER OF ENGAGEMENTS RECEIVED (over 3 months) and comments) with over 75,000 on its corporate account, followed by BP and Shell. The average Top 10 Corporate accounts Top 10 Sustainability Leader Accounts number of engagements for corporate accounts 1 Unilever 75,325 1 Mike Barry formerly 45,474 over three months was a little over 11,300. Marks & Spencer 2 BP 72,913 Mike Barry again tops the sustainability leader 2 Kate Brandt Google 8,502 accounts with over 45,000 engagements 3 Shell 52,486 3 Bea Perez The Coca-Cola 3,476 (as many as the 6th placed corporate account). 4 Nike 51,178 Company Kate Brandt (Google) and Bea Perez (Coca-Cola) are second and third in engagement. The average 5 Procter & Gamble 46,891 4 Tony Milikin AB InBev 2,724 engagements across the 47 sustainability leaders 6 Google 43,788 5 Virginie Helias Procter & Gamble 2,690 accounts was just under 1,600. 7 The Estée Lauder 36,226 6 Bertrand Swiderski Carrefour 2,041 Companies Inc. 7 Al Iannuzzi The Estée Lauder 1,789 8 Diageo 35,377 Companies Inc. 9 adidas 34,403 8 Marie-Claire Daveu Kering 1,417 10 Pfizer 32,364 9 Jennifer Silberman formerly Target 871 guidance 10 Alexandra Palt L’Oréal 832 For company and personal accounts Include widely used hashtags high quality content is key. reflecting your content and use the ‘@’ symbol to credit Don’t make overtly promotional posts. organizations or individuals mentioned in your post. Do, feature informative thought- As always, monitor your provoking content. engagement to learn which Do include video, graphics and posts resonate best with your audience. photographs. 5 CONTEXT SPECIAL REPORT www.contextsustainability.com FINDINGS Sector leaders The Top 5 Our 100-company survey contains eight APPAREL BEVERAGE FMCG sectors plus a group of five young companies - ‘newcomers’. Our sector rankings combined the 1 Nike 1 Diageo 1 Unilever rankings for posting frequency and engagement 2 adidas 2 The Coca-Cola Company 2 Procter & Gamble for both types of account. The sector leaders are: 3 Kering 3 PepsiCo 3 The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. 4 Levi’s 4 AB InBev Apparel 4 L’Oréal Nike 5 H&M Group 5 Carlsberg 5 Colgate-Palmolive Beverages Diageo FOOD PHARMA AND RETAIL TOP FMCG HEALTHCARE Unilever 1 Mars, Inc. 1 Merck 1 Marks & Spencer Food 2 Danone 2 Pfizer 2 IKEA Group Mars, Inc. 3 General Mills 3 Bayer 3 Carrefour Pharma and healthcare Merck 4 Kellogg Company 4 Medtronic 4 Walmart 5 Tyson Foods 5 Takeda 5 Tesco Retail Marks & Spencer SOFT COMMODITIES TECHNOLOGY AND NEWCOMERS Soft commodities COMMUNICATIONS Olam International 1 Olam International 1 Google 1 WeWork Technology and communications Google 2 Cargill 2 SAP 2 Uber Newcomers 3 Archer Daniels Midland 3 Oracle 3 Etsy WeWork 4 Golden Agri-Resources 4 Intel 4 Tesla 5 Louis Dreyfus Company 5 Adobe 5 Airbnb 6 CONTEXT SPECIAL REPORT www.contextsustainability.com FINDINGS Overall ranking 1 BP 26 Oracle 51 Salesforce =75 The Kraft Heinz Company 2 Unilever =27 Cigna =52 Golden Agri-Resources =77 Catalent, Inc.