Cisco embodies networking and interconnectedness through their social media communications on the Internet of Everything concept. The company’s thought leadership is leveraged across multiple social networks and prioritised through main corporate channels.
Cisco embody networking and interconnectedness through their social media communications and reach fourth in SB{influencers}100 thanks to a content strategy that frequently shares stories and insights on sustainability-related themes across multiple social channels. Like many top-ranking brands in our index, Cisco have a dedicated Twitter account for their CSR communications – @CiscoCSR – but much of the sustainability-relevant content that the company as a whole shares across all the social media networks it uses relates to the Internet of Everything (IoE) concept.
The company shares insights on this concept of the interconnection of people, process, data, and things across all of its main platforms. Cisco commentary on the aspects that relate to its business model, and how they are affecting the way we live and work, but the company doesn’t directly connect them to their CSR or sustainability strategy. Nor does Cisco make an overt connection to the IoE’s potential to make a positive contribution to solving sustainability challenges.
Yet much of this content is relevant to the sustainability debate as it discusses how the disruptive nature of the concept can influence and solve major sustainability issues such as health, urbanisation and resource constraints
For example, Cisco uses hashtags #InternetOfEverything and #IoE regularly on the corporate Twitter, the dedicated IoE Twitter, @CiscoCSR and the corporate Facebook page to highlight their own as well as others’ thought leadership. Nevertheless, due to the considerable difference in follower base, IoE insights reach a much wider audience when shared from the corporate handle @Cisco (average of 25 retweets) compared to when sent from the dedicated @CiscoCSR handle (average of just over 2 retweets).
The dedicated CSR Twitter channel as well as the dedicated Facebook and Instagram are typically where the company communicates on more mainstream social change issues and CSR focus areas such as poverty, skills, and hunger through the CSR strategy ‘Impactx.’
Described as “combining the power of human collaboration and networked connections” Cisco’s posts on this theme use the hashtag #ImpactX and link to a sponsored section of the Huffington Post’s cause and social justice section ‘Impact.’ The media partnership ensures that Cisco have a steady stream of relevant content to share and inspire engagement, although these tweet on average receive only slightly higher rates of interaction to the rest of the content on @CiscoCSR.
Currently, Cisco is missing a huge opportunity to increase the impact of Impactx by joining up the content with corporate communications in the same crosscutting approach as the Internet of Everything content. Unlike IoE content, the corporate @Cisco handle rarely shares Impactx stories, so the potential reach of these initiatives could be considerably wider.
Cisco is one of the few companies to use Instagram to communicate on sustainability, and even has a dedicated account, however links to the page from other channels such as Twitter and Facebook are infrequent, and the images are not cross-posted – so Cisco could expand its presence by more closely combining these channels.
