Utilities on social: 4 crisis tips for community managers

Utilities on social: Four crisis tips for community managers

© 2015 Capstrat LLCAll Rights Reserved

Hurricane season and winter make you feel like this:

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What will customers say during a storm?

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Opinion leaders may join the conversation

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Social Media Community Managers Everyone

Social media: The pinpoint

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BE HUMAN

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The ‘anonymous’ effect on social media

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Engagement first

• Storm mindset = Engagement first, content second

• Consider adding signatures to responses “-HH” or “-AW”

• Set a cut-off – respond twice, then take it offline

• Change up canned responses

• Use photos to show level of damage, progress

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When in doubt, Linemen.

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LEVERAGE INTERNAL EXPERTISE

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Your best friends: Subject Matter Experts

• Expand your definition of Subject Matter Expert (SME) No longer behind the scenes Keep your eyes out for social media SMEs

• Hand off some of the tough stuff

• Trust, but train

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Branded channels

PG&E and DE both have them – will pull images


Branded channels


Account takeovers

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DIVIDE AND CONQUER


DIVIDE AND CONQUER CUSTOMER SERVICE

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Create a plan for rapid responses

42% of consumers expect service providers to respond to customer service issues on social media in 60 minutes or less.

Equip your social media customer service team with key resources.

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Important contact information

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Relevant hashtags

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Monitoring hand-off protocol

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Power restoration resources

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DIVIDE AND CONQUER YOUR AUDIENCE

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Use social advertising to reach your customers

• Social advertising can help to expand the reach of your message beyond your followers during a storm.

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Use targeting to segment your customers

Social advertising gives utilities the ability to: • Geotarget customers in specific zip codes or service areas.• Send location-specific updates on outages or storm conditions. • Ensure that customers don’t see messages that are not relevant

to their area.

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Use data to inform social ad targeting

• Use email databases and website retargeting to quickly get a message to your customers on social media.

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COMMUNICATE EARLY AND OFTEN


Scenario planning

Three to five different crisis scenarios

Specific, plausible events

Response framework• If A, then Z• If two or more of A-E, then Y

Example messages and spokespeople

Practice, practice, practice

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Protocol: Fail to prepare or prepare to fail

Identify a crisis team in advance • One person with absolute decision-

making authority• Spokesperson

Establish notification protocols• Update frequency for customers, policy

makers, partners and the media• Which channels for which stakeholders

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Information hub: Think mobile first

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Take it social: Pinned tweets and posts

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Maintaining or rebuilding trust post-crisis

• Visible leadership• Tips for success:

• Respond quickly• Take responsibility• Communicate honestly and transparently• Display compassion• Listen and collect feedback• Establish clear priorities

• Proactive, positive content and engagement

• Show, don’t tell

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EXPERIMENT, ANALYZE, ADAPT

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Test multiple tactics on social media

How to measure social activities during a storm:

• Experiment with different types of content: What generates the most engagement and positive responses?

• Use a dedicated hashtag to easily

track your posts and posts from customers.

• Create campaign tracking URLS to

measure onsite behavior.

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Recap

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Thank you

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Thank you

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Alison WhisenantAccount Manager, Social [email protected]

Hannah Harrill Sr. Account Executive,

Public [email protected]

Laura BrewerVP, Account Director, Public Affairs

[email protected]

Marketing

Utilities on social: 4 crisis tips for community managers