Corporate Watch. Do you know who they are?
Well, Corporate Watch, located in London, UK, is a research organization with the objective:
to examine the oil industry, globalistion, genetic engineering, food, toxic chemicals, privatisation and many other areas, to build up a picture of almost every type of corporate crime and the nature and mechanisms of corporate power, both economic and political. We have worked with and provided information to empower peace campaigners, environmentalists, and trade unionists; large NGOs and small autonomous groups; journalists, MPs, and members of the public. (Per CorporateWatch.org About page, accessed January 27, 2010.)
Since Corporate Watch keeps an “eye” on corporations, the least I can do is return the favor. So, I keep an “eye” on them. I check their website periodically to catch up on the latest “corporate scandals,” much of which is a re-hashing of themes that have been floating around for quite a while. Since I’ve been visiting their site, I’ve noticed that CorporateWatch.org is not “social.” By “social” I don’t mean “socialist,” although much of their writing certainly contains that philosophy, and by “social” I don’t mean captivating at parties or adept at interaction at a bar. By “social” I mean employing social media in their communications strategy. Such a move would seem to be a logical step for Corporate Watch because, as activists, social media is almost tailor-made for the types of missions that they undertake. Social media is a perfect environment for an organization like Corporate Watch to extend their message. But, no. Apparently, they don’t understand that. They don’t do that “social thing.”
On a recent visit, where I was once again befuddled as to why Corporate Watch doesn’t have a social media campaign, it occurred to me that maybe I was missing indicators of their participation in the social web. Upon visits to their site, I’ve found myself looking for the “obligatory” indicators of a Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or other social media account. You know. What I was looking for was those cute buttons hung on websites and attached to social media profiles at Twitter, Facebook, etc. CorporateWatch.org doesn’t have those. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t participate in social media. Maybe I wasn’t looking in the right place. So, I started a hard target search.
In their Nav Bar I noticed “Links” and “Contact & Links” anchor text. I clicked them, with great anticipation I might add. Both links took me to the same place, a portal page filled with links to other anti-corporatist websites. “Interesting. But not what I’m looking for right now,” thought I, “Perhaps they just don’t want to place those cute little social buttons on their site. Maybe they think those buttons are a little too ‘bourgeois.’ ” So, I moved on. I moved on to Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace to perform a discrete search, to see if I could find a Corporate Watch presence. Here’s what I found.
Twitter: Nothing. No Corporate Watch presence. Tried various spellings. Unless they’re hiding it very well (like under a different name), I didn’t find a Twitter account for Corporate Watch. I did get search results for a pile of other .org organizations, however. But nothing for Corporate Watch. Yet, while I was there, so it shouldn’t be a wasted trip, I updated my own status. Never pass up a good opportunity to tweet, I always say.
Facebook: Again, nothing. No Corporate Watch presence there either. Again, I tried various spellings. The Facebook search gave me some web results for Corporate Watch, but nothing of a social nature, just standard Web 1.0-type website references. I didn’t update my Facebook status while I was there, though. My Facebook friends are mostly real friends, friends I’ve had since junior high, or relatives. Not business associates. I didn’t think people I knew in seventh grade and my cousins, whom I’ve known since Day One, would really care about my CorporateWatch.org hard target search. So, I moved on again. Next stop, MySpace.
MySpace: Ah – hah. Got a hit there. They have a MySpace account at MySpace.com/corporate_watch. There was an Australian Corporate Watch profile there, as well. But I disregarded that, at least for now, because in this post I’m just concentrating on the British version of Corporate Watch.
Let’s talk about that MySpace presence.
On the Corporate Watch MySpace profile, the visitor is greeted with the following caption:
The Earth is not dying – it is being killed. And those who are killing it have names and addresses.
Ooooo . . . kay. Rather baleful. But let’s move past this abstruse warning and the rhetoric and take a look at what’s happening on this MySpace profile, or should I say what is not happening on at this profile.
Corporate Watch has only 127 friends on their MySpace account (as of January 27, 2010). I’m not entirely certain how long this profile has been up and trying to gather friends. There is no date indicating creation of this MySpace profile. But the last Corporate Watch administrator login date was shown as June 30, 2008. So, after at most a year and one-half, Corporate Watch has been able to muster only 127 friends. That’s not a very impressive following for being in the MySpace game for at least 18 months. Quantitatively, I can say that their MySpace effort is not successful. Now, let’s take a qualitative look at those friends.
From a random sampling of their friends list, most of those friends appear to be other activist groups, not individuals. This high proportion of groups as friends indicates that Corporate Watch is having trouble attracting individuals, which I would expect would be extremely important to the success of the anti-corporate campaigns that they undertake. The fact that most of their friends list is comprised of other activist groups indicates that Corporate Watch may be “preaching to the choir.” Consistent with their friends list being mostly groups, not surprisingly, many of the comments on their MySpace page are from activist groups, not individuals. This is a strong indication that the Corporate Watch message may have limited reach. To test my theory of limited reach, I took a trip over to Compete.com, a website ranking service. Limited reach, indeed. Compete.com shows that for 2009, CorporateWatch.org attracted between 500 to 3500 visitors per month. Again, not very impressive, is it? You can see those findings by clicking here.
And getting back to those Corporate Watch MySpace friends. They aren’t very active commenters. On the date I visited (January 27, 2010), the most recent comment was dated November 18, 2009; the comment immediately prior was dated May 25, 2009. The comment before that? October 1, 2008. See what I mean? Not a very active MySpace group. The group is limited in interaction, number, and frequency.
So, what does the foregoing mean?
Well, it means that:
1) Corporate Watch is apparently either ignorant of the benefits social media could bring to their campaigns, or is overlooking the benefits that a properly organized social media campaign could have, especially for an activist organization. They either don’t understand social media, are afraid to use it, or are oblivious to it. In any case, this is a “plus” for the corporations that Corporate Watch “watches.”
2) Due to their relatively limited reach, and seemingly narrowly segmented audience (at least based on the sample seen at their MySpace profile), this “irregular competitor” is not a significant threat against the reputations of the corporations they monitor and on which they report.
All of this is very surprising. For an organization that, by their own declaration on the banner of their website, has been doing “corporate critical research since 1996,” one would think that they would have evolved with web technology. That has been a web technology that since 1996 has given birth to new social movements and “legs” to social movements that existed prior to that date. But this activist group, this “irregular competitor,” has not kept current with the evolving trends in web communications. Indeed, their website, CorporateWatch.org, looks like something right out of 1996. Click. See for yourself. The site is of the Web 1.0 variety, static and non-interactive. They don’t even offer an RSS feed. In this current configuration, their lack of employment of Web 2.0 technologies and participation on the social web seriously mitigates the degree of efficacy that Corporate Watch can have as an “irregular competitor.”
On the “Irregular Competition Threat Index,” a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the highest threat level), I rate CorporateWatch.org as a “3.”
Because of these factors, economically, demographically, and psycho-graphically, social media are perfectly positioned for NGOs to leverage in their campaigns against business. Because of these reasons, and because NGOs are among the chief anti-corporate campaigners out there, companies want to know more about what these atypical competitors, these “
