This article was originally published in Dutch in 2012 and has been translated and updated in October 2026.
Companies that stick green labels on their activities as proof of sustainability, while everything inside the organisation stays exactly as it always was: that phenomenon is called greenwashing. Or, put another way: green on the outside, hollow on the inside. And now a new-fangled danger is lurking: social washing…
In 2010, Shell won the Dutch ‘Groene Zeepbel’ (Green Bubble) award for the ‘best’ greenwashing campaign, over its dubious gas flaring practices in the Niger Delta, while presenting itself in the media as deeply concerned about air quality. Unfortunately for Shell, the public saw straight through it, and the damage to its reputation was done. Top brands are terrified of being accused of greenwashing. It is the very opposite of authenticity, where sustainability and corporate social responsibility are embedded in the corporate DNA. At the time of writing, ‘social media’ was the hot topic that no company seemed able to ignore. So are companies, much like with greenwashing, now engaging in social washing?
Are companies guilty of social washing?
The answer to this question is: unfortunately, yes. Social washing means trying to prove to customers (and employees) how social a company is by hastily setting up social media accounts, with euro signs in their eyes, without drawing any consequences for rolling out social networking across the entire organisation. A company that opens social media channels implicitly signals that it understands consumer empowerment and the power of the social web. Customers expect to be recognised and acknowledged online, and above all, they expect the company to invite person-to-person conversations.
You can recognise social washing in companies by the absence of vision, ambition, a social media strategy and/or commitment from management and the board. Well-known symptoms of social washing include an intern who rules the roost over social media, and corporate accounts on Twitter (now X) or LinkedIn that have been eerily quiet for months.
Meeting customers’ ‘social’ expectations with a good content strategy
Customers expect conversations about relevant content that comes to them naturally. So how do you bring your website to the traffic (in other words, the places where your target audience is and ‘talks’ online), instead of bringing the traffic (visitors from your target audience) to your website? A well-thought-out content strategy is therefore the beating heart of your social media strategy. The temptation to simply broadcast, old-school style, for example by posting relevant content on Facebook without a call to action to the customer in every post, unfortunately leads not to conversations, but to disappointment.
A content strategy without conversation is no content strategy at all
American retail giant Walmart badly misjudged this in its hyperlocal Facebook strategy. At the time, each of the 3,500 Walmart stores had its own Facebook page. With this, the retail chain wanted to strengthen the bond and engagement between local stores and local customers. A nice idea, but it does not work when, in practice, 85% of Walmart’s local Facebook pages never respond to a post from local fans.
An additional problem was that Walmart had a centralised content strategy. What is relevant to customers can differ by region or neighbourhood. Walmart therefore needed local community managers authorised to create and publish local content. At the time, that was not (yet) the case.
The result of these two weaknesses in Walmart’s social media and content strategy was that the growth in Walmart fans on Facebook, and the sales that were expected to come with it, fell short.
A fierce comment from a customer, but still no response from Walmart after 38 minutes
Content: from ‘king’ to ’emperor’
Social business analyst Jeremiah Owyang, then at the research and advisory firm Altimeter, expected that companies that manage to be more relevant to their audiences on social networks, driven by a well-thought-out content strategy, will dominate the market in the future. If content was already king, it would soon become ’emperor’.
The remedy for social washing: cultivate social DNA
Cultivating social DNA is the remedy for social washing. Building social DNA in your organisation starts with asking what the impact and/or added value of social media is across every aspect of the business: from processes and organisational structures, functions, roles and responsibilities, right through to your range of products and services. This question should be asked by everyone: employees, managers, executives and the board. The transformation into an organisation that authentically uses social networking to engage with one another, with suppliers, with partners and with customers is then within reach.
Social technologies make social DNA flow faster
Social technologies play an important role here. Developments and possibilities in internal and external social media platforms move fast. Under the influence of this social technology, leadership will inevitably undergo a transformation. Charlene Li, at the time a social business analyst at Altimeter, shows this in her book Open Leadership. In it, she describes, among other things, online collaboration projects among employees and the online co-creation of products, with customers and executives sitting ‘at the same table’.
Charlene argues that these developments call for a different long-term vision on, and approach to, management and business processes. You analyse the impact of social media on the business in terms of opportunities rather than threats. You think across the silos in your organisation instead of from within them. You look from the outside in rather than from the inside out. You start from your customer rather than from your products: the customer journey and customer experience are at the heart of every decision you make. That is how you move from social washing to an authentically ‘social’ organisation.
Burberry has social DNA
The luxury fashion brand Burberry was, at the time, a fascinating example of a company with social DNA running through its veins. Rich content (videos, photos, publications) was distributed from a single social management platform (Salesforce) and apps, both in Burberry stores and via social media. The result was a seamless integration of the offline and online experience. Burberry was the first to launch a fashion show where you could see the garments in a mobile app just before they appeared on the catwalk. During the show itself, the clothes could already be bought via that same mobile app. In the summer of 2012, Burberry’s customer experience was enriched even further with the opening of a Burberry flagship store on Regent Street, London. The store was packed with technical gadgets, and customers felt as if they were stepping into a website. When they put on a coat and stood in front of the mirror, a hidden chip in the coat triggered a video showing the craftsmanship with which the coat had been made.
Burberry flagship store on Regent Street, London
Angela Ahrendts, then CEO of Burberry, talks about Burberry, social media and the brand’s campaigns in the video below.
Interview with Angela Ahrendts at Dreamforce 2012
In the video, Angela Ahrendts, then CEO of Burberry, says, among other things:
“We challenge ourselves constantly to stay ahead of the curve. Be it mobile, be it social, be it physical. They’re all one. Life is forever blurred. I grew up in a physical world. And I speak English. The next generation lives in a digital world. And they speak social. Whether you’re talking with customers or employees, you have to do it on a social platform, because that’s the language they speak. Wherever the customer is, we should be able to hear it. Our teams around the world pick up on that and start conversations with you in real time, in 20 seconds, on our social platform. That’s the ultimate customer service.”
“We opened up the store of the future, our Burberry flagship store on Regent Street, London. When you walk in, it feels like walking into the website. When the customer puts on a chip-enabled trench coat and stands in front of the mirror, they’ll see visuals of how that coat was made with craftsmanship. Or when they grab a handbag, video content comes to life right in front of them.”
Are you guilty of social washing?
Want to start changing today? Change begins with asking questions…
- How much potential among your ‘brand workers’ and your customers in the area of social networking are you still leaving untapped?
- Do you use social media platforms, internally and externally, for your business processes?
- What is your vision on social marketing?
- How well do you know your customers?
- Are you sure they are on the social networks where you think they are?
- How relevant is your content to your customers?
- Are you already working deliberately on cultivating social DNA in your organisation?
In short: are you in conversation with your customers?