The Blog

This article forms part of a study on social media usage amongst FTSE 100 companies.

Each company in the FTSE 100 index was reviewed on its usage of such social media tools as RSS feeds*, blogs, online video, podcasts and social media platforms like Flickr and Facebook on its main website and on occasion, on websites of well-known subsidiary companies.

*RSS feeds are a simple way of delivering fresh versions of a website’s content to online readers automatically.

According to the Guardian.co.uk Business Glossary:

“The FTSE 100 index comprises the 100 most highly capitalised blue chip companies on the London Stock Exchange, representing approximately 81% of the UK market.”

Let’s see how one of the world’s leading precious metal producers Fresnillo (FRES.L) fared.

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Online Video/Webcasts: No
Usage of Social Media platforms: No
(Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, del.icio.us, Twitter, Digg etc)

According to Google Finance:

Fresnillo plc is engaged in the production of gold and silver. As of December 31, 2009, the Company operated four producing mines, all of them in Mexico, including Fresnillo, Cienega, Herradura and Soledad-Dipolos; one development project at Saucito; and three exploration prospects in San Juan, San Julian, Orysivo, as well as a number of other exploration prospects. The Fresnillo mine is primary silver mine located in the State of Zacatecas.

My pre-evaluation expectation of how the company will fare:

Due to the nature of the business, I can honestly say that I feel there will be little or no use of social media within the company, however being one of the world’s largest precious metal mining companies, I could be wrong.

Commentary:

In their own words: -

“We are the world’s leading primary silver producer and Mexico’s second largest gold producer”. From Fresnillo’s website”.

As i expected, Fresnillo do not involve themselves with social media. Their simple and straight forward website is free of any social media platforms, and shows that they are a very corporate business, their sleek and straight to the point webpage does have all relevant information from up to date share prices, to the board of executives plus downloadable information covering annual results to health and safety commitments, to show you what the company is all about.

However they do have an RSS news feed icon on the top of their homepage bar, as well as various other news updates on their Media link page, including one section which shows the latest share prices from the London Stock Exchange Regulatory News Service. Their website remains slick and simple and very user friendly, i found it very easy to navigate around this website and find any information for which i was looking for, though the main thing i was looking for, the social media platforms were nowhere to be found.

After a long search searching various social media websites, Facebook,Twitter, flickr, digg, YouTube, I did not find any online media presence for Fresnillo, while this doesn’t come as much of a shock for me, it doesn’t seem that they are trying to shy away from the use of social media, rather it seems that such a company does not need to use such online media.

Recommendations

• Keep a diary. One thing Fresnillo are proud of, is their involvement and commitment to maintaining healthy relationships between communities for the areas in which they operate and their environment management practices. Maybe a nice little video diary of the way in which they go about such processes, giving everyone an insight into how Fresnillo manage their engagement with the communities, and the response from the communities themselves, would be a nice finishing touch to their already polished website

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What do you think?
Are you a customer, employee, shareholder or stakeholder of Fresnillo? I would love to hear your thoughts on this review. What would you like to see Fresnillo doing more of in terms of social media? More online video? more interaction between those affected perhaps?

Share your thoughts in the comments!

Need any help?
Do you work for Fresnillo and want some insight into some of the ideas published here?

Or perhaps you look after marketing for Fresnillo and would like a quick chat about putting some of those recommendations into practice.Contact us.

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