How SDGs Communication Relates to SEO and Social Media

Corporate work on the SDGs grows by the day, and with it attention to the communications side: how that work is told to society. Today we set out our thinking on “digital promotion after an SDG action”, from a digital marketing point of view.

1. The growth of the SDGs and its effect on business dealings

As the picture above shows, SDG-related stocks on the market have been growing at more than twice the rate of ordinary stocks.
In almost every industry, led by mobility, many companies are looking to create new market opportunities by putting the SDGs at the centre of how they run the business.

Judging attention from a digital marketing point of view, searches on Google have risen sharply over the past year. Japan is not at the level of the United States, but you can see this is work that will draw attention here too.

2. Who reads SDG articles

So who actually reads about this SDG work?
Attention to the SDGs is rising, but that does not mean everyone is interested.

“Investors who make their living on the stock market”
“People in companies who select and manage customers and suppliers”
“People with high business literacy, such as readers of the Nikkei”

The SDGs are promoted on all sorts of programmes, including for children, but when it comes to actively seeking information out, there is no denying this is material the people above are paying attention to. The whole population is not yet strongly interested.

From a communications point of view too, the quality has to be good enough for people like those to read it.

3. Promotion methods from an SEO point of view

The most used search engine in Japan is, of course, Google.
Whether a web property is run in line with Google’s rules for ranking is something every web marketer watches daily.
Run it the wrong way and it stops appearing, which does serious damage to the business.

And one important factor in ranking, said to be drawing ever more attention in 2022, is Google’s“Author Rank”, that is, who the author or supervising expert is.
It means Google rates the expertise and authority of the author or supervising expert and ranks the page accordingly.

And “is this article written or reviewed by an expert in the field?” matters not only to Google’s criteria but to readers as well.

To return to the point: when you set out to spread word of a company’s SDG work through the web, is it enough simply to write an article about it and publish it on your own site?

SDG work needs to be known to the many stakeholders around the business. Reaching companies and readers who do not know you at the time of publication raises the chance of creating an opening for new business.

In other words, when you communicate SDG work, having specialist writers and supervising experts who understand that work lets you communicate it more widely and more effectively.

4. Promotion methods from a social media point of view

And as a reader yourself, what makes you come across a web article day to day? Some are of course read through news apps such as SmartNews.
Offline conversions, on the other hand, If someone you respect posts on social media saying“here is an article I wrote”, you will certainly read it, and you will give the content a degree of regard, trust and satisfaction.

In an age of too much information, we see articles written or reviewed by someone you respect and follow as important activity for guaranteeing the quality of your readers and the richness of what you provide.

I am rather fond of “Sakana-kun”, and I always read articles he has reviewed on SDG goal 14, “Life Below Water”, and trust them more than other articles.

Seen from the point of view of who is doing the telling, the author and the supervising expert matter a great deal.

5. Launching this summer! [SDGs PR]

And we at NowVillage plan to launch a service that does all of the above this summer.
It is called SDGs PR.

It is a web publication devoted solely to telling the story of corporate SDG work.
The promotion works as shown below.

Unlike an ordinary publication, conveying high-quality material (SDG work) effectively to interested readers calls, we believe, for all four of the people above.

An editor interviews and produces a high-quality article.
A supervising expert reviews it as a professional in the field.
Then a marketer spreads it using every web and social media technique available,
and sustainability experts get behind it.

We run it as a structure where those four act as one.

Our goal for 2024 is to be No.1 in digital promotion for the SDGs and we are preparing accordingly.

Over the medium term we will doggedly build the value of the publication itself, and we dream of extending into conferences and into magazines and books.

Looking ahead, we will keep producing strong articles steadily and prepare to offer promotion in other fields too, such as running events and publishing magazines.

6. A request

Finally, a request.
If you know any writers, supervising experts or experts (ambassador types) who would be interested in “SDGs PR” and spreading word of corporate SDG work, would you introduce them to us?
Working in digital marketing, it is easy to drown in talk of technique.
But to deliver excellent SDG work widely and richly, we need the help of people with real energy who care about this kind of work as we do.

The concept of the publication is
“Telling changes things”

Do get in touch, either through NowVillage or through my own Twitter or Facebook.

■Company contact
　NowVillage, Inc.
　SDGs media contact
　info@now-village.jp

■Personal contact
　◆Facebook
　◆Twitter

Postscript: at the end of June 2022,SDGs PR went live.