ABSTRACT
Fractal analytics, for example, uses patented technology to determine what stakeholders are saying on social media about a company's social, environmental and product performance. Engagement is already happening and it will become far more interactive. Some organizations will continue to have more robust conversations with their stakeholders online. Looking to the future, stakeholder interaction will be driven by the pressures of pluralism, the importance of continuous and frequent communications and the need for information on demand. In a sense, the playing field has been levelled, giving stakeholders the opportunity to initiate and drive the conversation, which in turn will drive greater openness. According to The Future of Stakeholder Engagement report by Brunswick, four in five communicators believe their organization will be doing more stakeholder engagement in five years' time, and crowdsourcing may be the perfect tool to respond to that demand. By far the most popular form of online collaboration, however, is via social media.
