Hi!

I've seen many presentations on the "value" of social media. (Great movie, Avista!) No doubt this stuff is interesting and shows the world that the utility is engaged and modern. What I have not seen is the ROI justification. This leads me to two questions:
1) Has anybody seen their investment in social media increase customer satisfaction scores (such as J.D. Powers, E-Source, or other measure)?
2) Does anybody compare the value of a $ spent on social media versus other media for their uti… Continue

I created this video, "Avista and Social Media" to help Avista employees understand Social media and how Avista is using it for customer communications. Since we're all in the utility biz, I suspect that many of you… Continue

Hi everyone,

At Progress Energy, we've been busy restoring power to severely damaged areas in Western N.C. due to the recent winter storm. This was the first time to use our full social media toolkit in a major storm situation, and we are quite pleased with the results so far. I'll share more after we've had a chance to debrief once the storm is over, but hopefully have some good lessons learned.

Here is a link to local coverage of the use of Twitter by us and Duke.… Continue

The fundamentals of social media are no different whether a utility or Proctor and Gamble. Across industries, I see four basic steps that most most companies generally work (sometime stumble) through:

1) Ignore
2) Listen
3) Engage
4) Lead

This isn't a new or unique concept and is very high-level; however, it does provide the framework to think about where you are and where you are headed.

Let's start with the fact that ignoring social media is not a viable strategy. If nothing else, you shoul… Continue

Okay guys... we work for utilities. Some of which are the most conservative corporate cultures you can imagine.

You don't just have to win over a few people, you have to earn a clean sweep of Legal, IT, HR, Communications, and any other committees that are risk averse.

So... with that in mind... please share the resources you've used to win people over to the strategic use of social media.

For example, that Socialnomics "… Continue