Today’s news is immediate, and it’s street-level. From Twitter and Facebook to YouTube and even text messaging, information has been “democratized”, E SOURCE’s Matthew Burks told me today.
No longer the sole purview of the young and extremely tech-savvy, social networking has become a must-have for any company navigating the news and views of the day (including those of the man on the street), and that includes electric utilities.
“Ignoring the social media space is no longer an option,” says Burks, who is E SOURCE’s manager of mass-market services. The rise of “citizen media” means there are new publishing channels available to anyone who has an opinion. And they’re not constrained by fairness, or by fact-checking their information before Tweeting, or posting on line. “You can say anything you want,” Burks says.
So where would a utility start when entering the digital social media? By taking a first, no-risk step, and “listening”, he told me, monitoring who’s talking about you, what they’re saying, and getting a feel for what’s going on out there. From there, it’s simpler to develop a strategy.
According to Burks, some utility companies have already integrated social media into their communications and/or operations strategy. Avista has a central blog, and encourages its customers to “join the conversation” about energy and rates. Arizona Public Service is on YouTube. Memphis Light, Gas and Water uses Twitter for outage management. Pepco, Puget Sound, NW Natural and Nashville Electric Service are also extremely active in the social media arena.
Burks estimates there are 80 or more utilities with Twitter accounts, though not all are active Tweeters.
“Very soon, this is the way we will communicate,” he told me. “We need to realize this is not a static space…it’s a rapidly evolving revolutionary step.”
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