You may know that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg recently wrote “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” but did you know she is an advocate of social marketing (the kind we iSMA members do)?
On page 56 of Lean In, Sandberg writes, “I… spent my second year [at Harvard Business School] studying social marketing—how marketing can be used to solve social problems—with Professor Kash Rangan. One of the cases we worked on concerned organ donations.” She added, “I never forgot this case, and seventeen years later, Facebook worked with organ registries around the world to launch a tool to encourage donor registration.” (See Facebook’s Share your organ donor status pages.)
Of course, the book’s focus is gender equity and what men and women can do to build an equal world. She encourages greater discussion of gender, which she acknowledges, “tends to make people uncomfortable.” Further, such discussions can pose legal risks in the workplace. However, Sandberg urges readers to “find a way to deal with these issues in a way that protects but doesn’t suppress.” It sounds like a good challenge for social marketing, doesn’t it? If you’re interested in gender equality, check out http://leanin.org.