Corporate Social Responsibility and Public Relations

Corporate social responsibility is a key term with companies these days. Everyone seems eager to explain how their company follows CSR guidelines and triple-bottom-line accountability.

Alongside companies' desire to express themselves as a follower and participant in CSR is the recent growth of social media. Obviously the conversation between companies and consumers has grown dramatically thanks to social media, (eg. I can visit Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz's blog and call him an arsehole if I want to) but what about social media's effect on Corporate Social Responsibility?

I believe that social media breeds increased accountability, forces corporate transparency, and allows consumer to demand more from big corporations. Lets face it, the days of hand written letters of complaint addressed to "whom it may concern at McDonalds" were hardly effective. Nowadays social media lets consumers get together, talk to each other, and confront companies that aren't making a CSR effort.

But the question is, how exactly does social media allow (or force, for that matter) companies to become more socially aware and responsible? And how do public relations professionals fit into the equation? I think that social media lets PR people sit at the table with the decision makers at companies and gives PR the opportunity to influence a company's social responsibility strategy.

Any thoughts, ponderings, or examples you fabulously intelligent readers can offer up would be extremely helpful, as not only am I personally interested in this shift in corporate responsibility obligations but this is also the topic of an assignment I'm working on.

What better place to solicit opinions on social media than on my blog?