Social Media Webinar June 3rd

[Karen Morris]

What a blockbuster event this was! Chip Perkins provided a engaging 1 hour session for Apogee Institute that outlined the definitions and uses of social media in the the energy industry. The webinar drew the interest of more than 200 energy professionals, unfortunately since these events are free and the no show rates are high, we had to impose a first come first serve rule capping the attendance at 100.

Here are a few pros and cons I have outlined through my observations in the field:

What's good about Social Media?

1. Social media is a very informal way to get your message to the world allowing you to put a human face on your company.
2. Twitter and Facebook appeal to the younger generation, so if this is your target audience it may be a great tool to reach the younger generation.
3. Low cost. It's easy to test the water with little investment.
4. Applications are user friendly and many platforms have a link to mobile phones allowing greater outreach for field reps, linemen and customers seeking outage information.

What's not so good about Social Media?

1. This medium is open to the public, negative posts or responses should be handled with transparency, in some cases turning bad into good by honest and open responsiveness. If handled poorly bad press could go viral.
2. Social media is labor intensive. While the up front cost is little or nothing, maintaining and monitoring the effort is time consuming.
3. In a conservative industry it can be hard to get complete buy-in from upper management.
4. The medium is experimental. No one knows where it is heading. Is it a fad or are we on the brink of our next communications break through?

Apogee does not discredit or endorse the use of social media, but judging from the numbers registered for our event last week, I think we all recognize the momentum building around the topic. The interest in how we can incorporate its use in our marketing and communications mix.

Learn more about this topic at INNOVATIONS 2009, Stay tuned!

[Suzanne Doublestein]

I believe that social media is very useful - not a fad at all - it's an easy and quick way to get information out to people - I know that I personally (and most of my friends) use Facebook quite often - and with the popularity of texting, etc. I think that social media is the way to go!