Fortune 500 Series: Duke Energy drives green initiatives with social media
Why would an energy company need social media? Simple. Scott Pacer, director of marketing communications for Duke Energy, explains in this Q&A how the company is using its young social media program to educate its customers on how they can use less energy, save money and help the environment.
Q. [Jennifer] At a high level, please tell me about Duke Energy's social media strategies:
A. [Scott] We're new to social media, so we're spending most of our time listening, observing and trying to identify for our internal clients the right opportunities where we can use social media to contribute to a community and drive Duke Energy's initiatives. For us, research has been key to understanding the tools - how they work, who they reach and the value they can bring. We are very sensitive to the zeitgeists that drive different social media outlets. We want to make sure we offer something of value - be it information, access to a product, or customer service - that enhances that outlet. We want to make sure we are developing relationships and partnerships, and not just creating another series of one-way communications.
Q. When considering new social media strategies, what is your first move...To hire? To invest? To seek out market data?
A. Definitely, seeking out market data. Many organizations are playing in this space, so we need to understand how Duke Energy can use the tools to provide timely and relevant information to our customers and other stakeholders.
Q. Has a social strategy been a larger or smaller priority with the economic shifts over the last six months?
A. It has definitely gotten larger. With potential climate change legislation and smart grid stimulus funds now available, there is a huge opportunity for us to connect with customers, regulators and other decision makers in new and transparent ways to get our messages out. We have a responsibility to inform, educate and ultimately generate meaningful conversation about initiatives that can help Duke Energy work collaboratively with our customers to use less energy, save money and help the environment. If we can move our customers to use less energy or at least use energy during times of the day when it's not in high demand, then we can begin to leverage energy efficiency as part of our generation mix. In simple terms - more energy efficiency will reduce the need to build additional power plants... and that's good for everyone.
Next: ROI and real world success -->
Q. What has driven your adoption of social media?
A. Tactically, it has been our customers' need for information, specifically updates during power outages. Strategically, we'd like to use social media to continue to build awareness and education about the importance of smart grid and the role it plays in helping our customers use less energy, save money and help the environment. Eventually, I see us using social media to promote new energy efficiency programs.
Q. How do you measure the ROI of your social media programs?
A. Right now, we're not using social media to drive revenue. The way we are measuring the investment is looking at the responses and feedback we're getting from customers and other stakeholders. Once we take a more commercial approach, we'll definitely use the tools for revenue generation.
Q. How long would you say you've had a social media program in place?
A. Six months. We're doing a crash course. We're looking for opportunities and when we find them -- we're in there.
Q. What is one example of a social media project gone right?
A. Duke Energy recently launched DukeEnergyStorm on Twitter.com as another way of keeping customers up to date on power restoration efforts. Since Twitter has a mobile application, even customers without power can now get updates on restoration efforts via their mobile phones. This was our foray into external social media applications and so far, the feedback has been good. For us, some of the best measurement is customer feedback. Shortly after the storm, we found this blog that actually commended us for our communication efforts. Good stuff for a power company.
Q. How is your company using social media to drive productivity internally?
A. It's been a definite upsell. We've recently started encouraging employees - specifically our leaders - to join Yammer.com, which works very much like Twitter only it's internal. By participating in Yammer our employees are learning more about the value of a social media tool and how it works. We've even had some of executives live "yamming" during meetings and other events. We have found that the greatest value of Yammer is we now have folks talking across departments, which has always been a challenge for us. They're sharing information about what they're working on right now and in the process helping others understand more about how the company fits together. We still have a long way to go - culturally - before we completely dive in to the social media pool internally.