B Corp Month is over: tips for marketers

B Corp Month is the annual call to arms for businesses and brands to re-think and push on with their environmental and social impact commitments. Clearly PR has analysed how the month panned out on social media and provides insights into how content creators can continue to maximise their impact now its over.

3 April 2024 | 4 min read | Content Marketing

Clearly Team

In 2020, Clearly PR took the first steps to becoming a certified B Corporation. A year later, we gained accreditation to become only the second PR agency in the South West to do so and the seventh nationally. Today, there are 47 PR agencies who have since become certified.

We’re not big fans of banging on about being a B Corp. But we do share the business benefits that certification has delivered for us.

For example, in an article for Raconteur in The Times, Clearly PR’s founder Paul MacKenzie-Cummins said that since 2021 the agency has seen the average value of client retainer agreements increase by 63 per cent. At the same time, our recruitment costs have dropped by around £10,000 a year.

Read ‘What’s the RoI of B Corp certification‘.

This extends to sharing insights into how marketers and in-house PR teams can capitalise on their B Corp status and our latest analysis work will serve to help those with responsibility for their organisation’s content marketing in the coming weeks.

B Corp Month: a social media overview

Clearly PR tracked the number of B Corp mentions on social media during the entirety of B Corp Month. As you can see from the statistics below, there was a flurry of activity during week one, but by week four enthusiasm appears to have waned:

Week one mentions: 713,457
Week two mentions: 645,676
Week three mentions: 459, 352
Week four mentions: 358,521 (-49 per cent down on week one)

The fall in the number of times B Corp was mentioned on social media doesn’t suggest a decline in interest in the movement. Nor should we assume that B Corp ‘fatigue’ had crept it. Rather, a couple of things may account for the sharp drop.

First, like any PR campaign, the first few weeks are critically important to its success. It is possible that this period was dominated by businesses and brands enthusiastically sharing their environmental and social impact stories.

-49% – Fall in the number of times B Corp/B Corp Month was cited in social media posts between 1st and 31st March.

But, and this is the second point, the success or failure of any storytelling campaign – especially one relating to ESG matters – is communicating the outcomes of those stories.

Put another way, what is the value being created and the impact that these initiatives are having? Talking about ‘actions’ and ‘intentions’ is easy, demonstrating’ their impact takes a lot of hard work.

Analysis of most popular key words using during B Corp Month

Just because B Corp Month is over doesn’t mean that businesses and brands cannot capitalise on the momentum they gained during March.

We tracked the most used key words in social media posts that talked about B Corp last month that you should consider integrating into your social media and thought leadership content this month, and beyond:

#BCorpMonth (kinda obvious, really)
#BCorp (just as obvious!)
#Standard
#Certification
#Community
#Business
#Impact
#Sustainability
#Social
#Impact

‘Greenwashing’ featured heavily during B Corp Month

We’re also keen observers of how other businesses and brands talk about their environmental and social credentials. Within that, we do have a bit of an obsession with ‘greenwashing’ and talk extensively about the importance of having an effective ESG comms strategy in place.

During B Corp Month, the number of mentions of ‘greenwashing’ ran high:

Week one mentions: 4,526,479
Week two mentions: 3,066,670
Week three mentions: 6,539,651
Week four mentions: 5,898,366 (+30 per cent up on week one)

We include this data because it serves as a reminder to organisations that great stories don’t just need to be told clearly, they must be backed up with data. Without it, these stories will always court skepticism and leave the window open to customers and prospects to wonder if such tales are more cautionary than celebratory.