What Does CSR on Social Media Look Like?: Harnessing the Power of Wild Public Networks
We wrote earlier on Patagonia’s provocative “The President Stole Your Land” initiative and the ways it responded to the need to 1) launch CSR efforts on social media and, 2) take a strong stance in a time of low social trust. In this piece, we take the time to detail how the wild networks of social media function to incite and move conversations, which ultimately put Patagonia in a place where it needed to respond to its admittedly racist past. In this piece, we detail how such initiatives can open companies up to further criticisms and calls to action.
The “President Stole Your Land” initiative went against CSR conventions that discourage corporations from engaging with non-stakeholders and politics. Launching a political statement against President Trump, in particular, on social media was guaranteed to lead to heated arguments, irrational debates, name calling, and impassioned commentary. Yet, Patagonia moved forward and ultimately used wild public networks to its advantage, but not without diverse consequences. Let’s explore some of these consequences.
By specifically referencing “The President” in its Twitter post, Patagonia utilized the energy and attention generated by a person many have dubbed “Commander in Tweet” to amplify its message. By connecting with the man who posts (often inflammatory) tweets religiously each day, Patagonia helped its message reach audiences it would otherwise not come near. In a matter of days, the company was not only making waves on social media, it was making headlines across the country.
Patagonia isn’t the only company to take a bold step toward politically controversial social network posts. In 2018, Nike released its first ad featuring Colin Kaepernick at the height of the controversy over the NFL kneeling protests. That same year, Dick’s Sporting Goods destroyed $5 million in rifles after the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In 2020 after George Floyd’s death, babynames.com changed its homepage to a black box within which were written the names of black men, women, and children who had died unjustly, starting with Emmitt Till and Martin Luther King, Jr. Patagonia may have led the charge, but others have certainly followed toward a highly political place, unafraid of consumer-led boycotts.
In an analysis we conducted, we found that by launching their campaign onto the wild public networks of social media, Patagonia’s campaign ended up reaching otherwise uncharted territory. It was able to do this because the online environment into which it was entering is one where posts can go viral overnight, reach millions instantly, and hop across platforms. Furthermore, with so many people connected, social media attention often drives mass media coverage, especially during a time when the President of the US regularly posts on Twitter, knowing it will be picked up by mass media.
There are, however, risks associated with using social media — a messy, complex, and perpetually changing environment. Even though each user can access the social media microphone, they cannot control where their messages end up, which means they often end up in places where they are more likely to be interpreted in ways that do not align with their intent and reused as a ventriloquist’s dummy into which people project their own voice and ideas, especially if they are images.
Corporations as advocates:
The recent rise in corporations taking up social causes is indicative of the importance of CSR in a time when the US government is often slow to respond to social issues. Debates about police reform, for example, are likely to continue for months if not years in the House and Senate before significant changes are made. But, corporations have a much greater influence on policy change than citizen groups. According to a 2014 study out of Princeton that tracked 1,779 policy issues to determine what factors influence policy adoption, “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.” So, supporting businesses that support the same causes as you, might be more effective than starting a civil movement (though one must look out for greenwashing and other similar social justice washing).
CSR efforts not only help to advance policies and advocate for causes, they also bolster revenues. A June 2020 Harvard Business Review article found that “companies with effective Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs are more profitable than those that aren’t.” Part of this stems from the fact that younger generations, in particular, use brands to create their identity and their identities are often intertwined with social issues. If a corporation sides with a cause Gen Z and Millennials believe in, it is likely to profit from increased sales from these demographics. Patagonia, for example, has seen a quadrupling of its revenue in a mere decade.
In an interview with Jeff Beer, Rose Marcario, CEO of Patagonia stated: “Doing good work for the planet creates new markets and makes [us] more money.” Part of making more money is expanding your reach and, by tapping into heated political conversations, Patagonia reached new audiences to which they might otherwise never had access. Even if the people they reach are not their ideal market (the brand’s price point is often too high for the average consumer, with the average jacket costing upwards of $300), their reputation is further established and their products more desirable.
Harnessing wild public networks
“The President Stole Your Land” initiative became a dummy into which many different people projected their own voices and interests. For example, social platform users quickly began attacking Patagonia for its overseas manufacturing, claiming that the company uses child labor in foreign countries even though this conversation has very little to do with public lands in the US. This tangent grew so prominent that it prompted the Secretary of the Interior at the time, Ryan Zinke, to attack Patagonia’s initiative on Fox and Friends. The result: Patagonia’s initiative was boosted in search results and Fox and Friends watchers ended up as active participants in Patagonia’s initiative and the ensuing deliberations.
Users’ posts frequently engaged multiple topics simultaneously, provoking a series of splintered comments such as this one on Facebook:
Patagonia — if you truly cared about the United States, you would make your clothing here and your labels would read “Made in the USA.” By the way, Bears Ears National Monument was established less than a year ago. It’s not like it’s been a national monument for decades and decades. Obama created it just a month before he left office. Your clothing is pretty pricey and most of the people I know who wear it are wealthy, well-off conservatives, so keep that in mind if you decide to go too deep into politics. You just might alienate the people actually buying your products. (@Julie Timms)
This user’s comment does important work for Patagonia’s initiative by linking it to partisan politics, manufacturing practices, land designations, and business practices — all highly charged issues that help the initiative to continue to pulsate out across social media networks — which privilege those posts that create a raucous — to reach an ever-growing audience. The more anger it ignites, the further it spreads.
Government figures, including @NatResources, the Twitter handle of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources responded in their own way. The person responsible for the Twitter handle posted a tweet that mimicked Patagonia’s black and white meme. It read, simply, “Patagonia is Lying to You.” The subsequent Twitter interactions were overflowing with partisan hashtags as is evidenced in this post: “You are LIARS and have no credibility. My family is done with your company for good. #VetsforTrump #USMC.” (@Tamara McPherson). Other posts criticized the brand for taking away American jobs through overseas manufacturing, another politically charged issue. This was an easy connection given that Trump ran on a platform to bring jobs back to the US. Zinke referenced this promise on the aforementioned Fox and Friends episode and the excitement it generated, which led to more partisan hashtags like #MAGA being paired with #boycottpatagonia.
Other users engaged with the post in a way that touched on related issues, including the deleterious impacts of formalizing access to spaces by turning them into national monuments and national parks a la famed environmentalist Ed Abbey. One user wrote:
“You do understand that when something becomes a ‘protected’ monument or national park, it suddenly doubles the traffic of tourists in and out. As someone that is as concerned about utahs [sic] conservation as you Are [sic], trust me when I say that less is more. If that makes sense” (@iisaacfrazier)
Comments such as this one made clear attitudes toward “saved” spaces. Environmentalists, public land stewards, motorized vehicle enthusiasts, hikers, and climbers all of a sudden felt compelled to chime into the conversation.
Yet another group disputed the idea that the land was “stolen,” as it had already been stolen from local indigenous groups. Some rewrote the black and white image to read “The President Stole Native Land.” This drew in many audiences close to the lands in dispute, including the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, the Ute Indian Tribe business committee, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Navajo Nation Council, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, law professors, as well as environmental organizations and individual advocates for Native tribes.
Patagonia chose not to respond to any of the comments we analyzed except those that specifically mentioned problems with the products they purchased from Patagonia. The choice to remain silent on all issues the initiative brought to the fore, however, ultimately led to sustained and persistent critiques about Patagonia’s CSR practices. According to their mission statement, Patagonia is “In Business To Save Our Home Planet.” But who’s home is it? And for whom are they saving it?
The company made a decision to engage in politics as well as the Twitterverse. The result: they started a dialogue to which they had to respond. And though they refused to do so on social media feeds at the time, they could not engage in politics and not engage in social issues as well. This has forced them to, again, change their CSR practices to include social issues.
While “The President Stole Your Land” proved to consumers that Patagonia was willing to take a risk, be bold, and most importantly, be authentic, it also left them open to some pretty harsh criticism. There was no room to ignore the fact that our public lands in the US are stolen and environmentalism is deeply rooted in white values, especially when groups like the Sierra Club were apologizing for the racist beliefs of John Muir and REI took very public steps to promote inclusivity in the outdoors.
At the end…
Entering into the wild and messy spaces of social media to take a stand and enact CSR efforts will always come with a cost (lost customers and lost revenue). Patagonia used this cost as an investment — in the current customers who support its environmental advocacy and in a new business model that is seeking to find a way to resolve the paradox of CSR. Yet, it also entered Patagonia into a dialogue that necessitated a response. Patagonia was being held accountable in new ways by the unintended audiences it engaged.
CSR today is and must be intersectional and recognize the complexity of the unequal world in which we live. Though environmentalism once was one of the easier feel-good ways to enact CSR, today it is deeply tied to political and social issues that have gone unaddressed for far too long. Thus, companies that engage in CSR on wild public networks need to be ready to respond and deepen their commitment to their cause.
