INTERNATIONAL hygiene, paper and forest products company Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget (SCA) has released information showing that one-third of traffic to the company’s web channels now occurs on the social web while overall traffic has jumped 50% since the company started using social media.
Details of the company’s web channel statistics were published in a feature article on the SCA’s website. They show that the company had a total of 672,956 views across all of its web channels in March 2011 – which is up more than 50% from a year earlier when the company launched accounts on various social networks.
Of the March total, 425,983 page views or 63% were to the company’s corporate website SCA.com, while 37% or 246,973 views occurred on the company’s social channels, which include Facebook, Twitter, SlideShare, Scribd and YouTube.
Social channels have driven a sharp rise in SCA's overall web traffic
Content sharing focus for IR info
Irina
According to SCA’s Online Communication Manager Konstantin C Irina, the increase was achieved without raising the Swedish company’s web communications budget, although it did come with a significant workload increase for web communications staff. Nonetheless, this has not dimmed the company’s enthusiasm for social media and the SCA is now planning to launch a new blog and a social media newsroom.
From an investor relations perspective, SCA’s social media activities center mostly on content sharing services YouTube, SlideShare and Scribd, which are tightly integrated with other content on the company’s website. The company has opted for a paid SlideShare account and uses the presentation sharing service for all investor presentations, some of which have been viewed up to 1,300 times.
The company’s Scribd account is mostly used for publications such as annual reports, sustainability reports and company newsletters, while YouTube is used for quarterly highlights videos. YouTube was the company’s first foray into social media and the 260 clips uploaded thus far have been viewed more than 350,000 times in total.
Social content is now part of SCA's core IR content offering
At present, SCA’s IR team is not using Twitter or Facebook to disseminate timely information to investors in the US, where SCA has had a Level 1 ADR program for its B shares since December 1995 under the symbol SVCBY. Establishing an IR presence on Twitter and Facebook is a low-cost and effective way for companies in SCA’s position to increase their accessibility to US investors, who own about 15% of SCA’s shares.
Says Irina: “The main reason for engaging in social media was to be present where our target groups really are instead of only trying to make them visit sca.com. I think that many people find it hard to read the more corporate content on sca.com and prefer instead to short posts on Facebook or Twitter, or to see our films on YouTube and our images on Flickr.”
SCA demonstrates a high level of expertise in using social media, especially in integrating social content into its corporate website. This is definitely a company to watch if you are looking for examples of best practice.
Dominic (bio & disclosures) is IR Web Report‘s founder and an online investor relations consultant. He advises leading public companies and investor relations service providers worldwide on using the web for disclosure, engagement and profile building. You can contact him via the contacts page.
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