Mineral Exploration is the official publication of the Association of Mineral Exploration British Columbia.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/370216
26 F A L L 2 0 1 4 instead recognized the benefi ts of using it to communicate their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts and achievements, and to reach increased levels of engagement with a wider range of stakeholders. Vancouver-based Goldcorp, the world's second-largest gold producer, actively participates on Facebook, Twitter, StockTwits, SlideShare, LinkedIn and YouTube, mainly regarding investor relations and CSR, as well as for recruiting. In May 2014, Goldcorp ran a campaign about its CSR performance and doubled its num- ber of retweets, increased its number of Twitter mentions by 30 per cent, tripled its weekly Facebook reach and had four times as many people talking about the company on Facebook. In two months alone it received 15,000 YouTube views. The company generated content on EBL Media, a channel that caters to CSR infl u- encers and others interested in environ- ment, social and governance issues, and received over 250,000 views, according to Christine Marks, Goldcorp's director of corporate communication. "Clearly, social media is becoming an increasingly important part of the communications toolbox in terms of reaching new and broader audiences, particularly in regards to our CSR programs and achievements." Goldcorp isn't the only company adding social media to its toolbox. "For a smaller-cap company, specifi cally in the mining sector, like Great Panther Silver, we first had to figure out where our investors were going to look for informa- tion about us – including issues related to community relations and environmen- tal performance. Then we tailored those platforms to make it easier for them to fi nd us," says Rhonda Bennetto, a cer- tain enthusiast of social media who was, until recently, vice-president of corpo- rate communications at Great Panther Silver. "We decided to use Twitter, StockTwits, Virtua, Facebook, LinkedIn and then Vimeo and SlideShare." In the case of NovaCopper, Patrick Donnelly, vice-president of corpo- rate communications, states that for NovaCopper, "the Facebook page is primarily geared towards community relations with the First Nations people, whereas Twitter is primarily for retail investors, shareholders and analysts." The nature of the media strategies for these companies range from increased stakeholder engagement to an attraction platform for new shareholders, who, as part of recent trends, now request not just fi nancial information from companies, but also social and environmental infor- mation supported by solid proof through performance measurements. When consulted about social risk though electronic media feeds that are external to the company, transparency is the front-runner of the conversation. Bennetto says, "We use Facebook a lot to communicate with our community and report on social events/strategy/contribu- tions, and I'm certain NGOs are reading our material. The only place you could get into trouble is fabricating the truth, exag- gerating what you are really doing or fi b- bing about the benefi ts to the community." Bennetto advocates honesty above all: "You must be honest on the web – some- one will fi nd out. Post thoughtfully and with due diligence (especially if you are quoting numbers)." She adds, "I know of one example where a company said their mining operation contributed directly or indirectly to a number of other jobs, when in reality that was not true – you