Page 129 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Suppliers

Now suppliers are a constituent that are extremely easy to take advantage of. After
all, they’re providing you with a product or a service that serves as a component
of what you go on to deliver to your customers. In the twenty-first century, that
is not acceptable.

It’s critical to deal fairly and ethically with suppliers. While they’re not directly a
part of your company, they’re a part of your value chain. What they do or don’t do
can reflect badly on you as well. (Just think about the Nike sweat shop controversy
from as recent as 2016 as an example of this.) The more you treat your suppliers
fairly and ethically, the more they will treat their own employees and their own
suppliers, in turn, the same way. When that happens, everyone wins. It’s impor-
tant to serve as a good partner to your suppliers.

Communities

Every company sits within a community. If you’re a small business with a store-
front, you feel this every single day. However, if you’re a large multi-national
corporation, you must remember that you have a responsibility when it comes to
where your employees live and work and where you sell your products.

It’s important for you and your company to be sensitive to the communities in
which they operate. This sensitivity translates into being good corporate citizens,
adding more to the community than you take away from it, and supporting local
community goals.

Shareholders

Without a doubt, shareholders are and always will be a very important constituent.
They’re the owners of the company and often are customers as well. Historically,
their needs have been served at the cost of serving the employees, suppliers, and
communities, but that’s beginning to change. In fact, in August of 2019, the
Business Roundtable, which is a group of CEOs representing some of the largest
companies in America, issued a statement changing their purpose to account for
employees, suppliers, customers, communities, and the environment as being
equally important to shareholders.
Part of serving shareholders is focusing on delivering long-term value to them so
that they continue to invest in the business. To do this effectively requires trans-
parency, high ethical standards (just as it matters when engaging other stake-
holders), and ongoing communication so that they know what the business is
doing, what is working, and what the long-term plans are.

CHAPTER 6 Understanding a Marketer’s Responsibilities 113