Guest post: The Group's Frank Harkin sides with Kevin Moss

Frank Harkin, Content Strategist at The Group, adds weight to Kevin Moss's argument that blogging is a vital CSR communications tool for companies

Context has started an interesting debate about sustainability blogging and I appreciate them inviting Kevin Moss to contribute his argument.

So who is right?

After reading both sides we tend to agree with Kevin.

Context contends that “All external sustainability blogs are, by necessity, rather anodyne.” This is an accusation that is levelled at many corporate blogs but, in this case, ignores a range of engaging and thriving sustainability blogs from some of the world’s biggest companies. These include:

- Cadbury
- McDonalds
- Intel
- BNP Paribas
- Nokia
- Fedex

The wider issue
There is also a general point here about CSR. It’s easy for CSR practitioners – who are deep in the details – to forget that there is a wider debate out there about CSR itself. There are reasonable arguments against CSR and many people question the sincerity of companies’ CSR commitments. Recently, Radio 4’s You and Yours programme devoted an entire show to the debate, which indicated that not everyone agrees that CSR has a place in the world of business.

If CSR professionals and the companies they work for want to convince the sceptics of the value of CSR, then blogging can be a powerful means to provide greater detail and transparency – quite apart from the benefits Kevin Moss discusses for making individual and personalised connections with stakeholders.

In one sense we agree with what Context is saying – blogging isn’t for everyone. However, it is rash to dismiss the effectiveness of it. Many companies still need to convince stakeholders that they mean what they say and would be well advised to consider blogging as a part of their CSR strategy.