Social Media Usage in the FTSE 100: Company Profile – Cairn Energy

Posted on 28. Nov, 2008 by in Social Media Strategies

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.”

………………

Here’s how independent petrol company, Cairn Energy (CNE.L) fared.

FTSE 100 Company RSS Podcast Blog Online Video Audio Facebook, Flickr, etc
Cairn Energy No No No Yes Yes No

………………

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

According to Yahoo! Finance:

Social Media Usage in the FTSE 100: Company Profile - Cairn Energy logo

“Based in Scotland and formed in 1980 by Bill Gammell, a former international rugby player, Cairn Energy is an independent petrol company.  After giving up its North Sea fields, Cairn Energy now focuses on exploration and production set-up of deposits located in South Asia.”

My pre-evaluation expectation of how the company will fare:
Having reviewed a couple of social media savvy energy companies (BHP Billiton and BP spring to mind) I’d be interested to see what this large independent company provides.

Commentary:
Cairn’s well designed homepage has an inviting link to ‘Webcasts’ which reveals not just a webcast but also an ‘audio podcast’ of the 2008 Half-yearly Report.

Unfortunately, you have to register to view the webcast.  A little search unearths a Corporate Movie which

“gives an insight into our strategy and culture, as well as details of operations in our key focus area of South Asia.”

It is available as a download. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to download and watch it.  From its size I suspect it would be easily accessible as a Flash video.

There are no RSS feeds; the “subscribe for updates” links you to a good old-fashioned mailing list sign up form.

The Press Release Archives is a series of articles that would serve better as blog posts:

Recommendations:

  • Use Flash Video - the Corporate Movie would have caught and held my attention if it was accessible in Flash format – all I would have had to do was ‘click Play’.  There are other energy companies doing this right.
  • RSS feeds, please - whilst Cairn Energy has a very usable website, there are a couple of additons that would make it much more useful for visitors.  Including an RSS feed for news and press releases is one of them.
  • Blog Company Business - the information rich site, replete with ‘glossy’ company reports and presentations, is a download junkie’s dream.  Most of the content is in the PDF format which is a shame as if it were easily accessible as text on a corporate blog, it would significantly amplify its usefulness to readers who may well re-blog articles and also improve search engine rankings for the company’s key words.

………………

What do you think?
Are you a customer, employee, shareholder or stakeholder of Cairn Energy? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this review. What would you like to see Cairn Energy doing more of in terms of social media? More online video? A CEO blog, perhaps?

Share your thoughts in the comments!

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

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

Related posts:

  1. Social Media Usage in the FTSE 100: Company Profile – British Energy
  2. Social Media Usage in the FTSE 100: Company Profile – Amlin
  3. Social Media Usage in the FTSE 100: Company Profile – Alliance Trust
  4. Social Media Usage in the FTSE 100: Company Profile – Centrica
  5. Social Media Usage in the FTSE 100: Company Profile – Carnival

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  • http://www.realfresh.tv/introduction-to-study-on-social-media-usage-amongst-ftse-100-companies/ Introduction To Study On Social Media Usage Amongst FTSE 100 Companies | Real Fresh TV | Social Media, Multi-Platform Marketing and Internet TV Specialists

    [...] Cairn Energy [...]

  • http://www.spotlightideas.co.uk Eamon

    Don’t see Twitter on the list ..

  • http://www.realfresh.tv Chi-chi Ekweozor

    Twitter wasn’t as popular as it is now when I started compiling the list of FTSE 100 companies using social media in the UK, back in February, @Eamon.

    Having said that, I think it’s still early days to review its usage amongst UK blue chips, at least judging by what I’ve seen of the adoption of other social media tools like Facebook, Flickr and even plain vanilla ‘blogs’.

    I’m always on the lookout for Twitter and other social media case studies though and may well have to include it
    soon.

    Thanks for your comment.

    Apologies for the ridiculously late response.

  • http://www.playbestcraps.com/ best craps online games

    I think my 404 handles the problem gracefully. I give the user the option of returning to the home page, point out the pages navigation menu at top, and point out a site search box. I also list the last 10 posts to the blog. Have a look: tuleydocs.com/oops