The Social Media Four Step

The fundamentals of social media are no different whether a utility or Proctor & 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 should at least be thinking about it. One good way to begin that process is to better understand where your organization sits in the digital/social media space. Listening will help you understand how much chatter there is about your utility (a lot or a little?), who is doing the talking (mainstream media, bloggers, micro-bloggers?), what they are saying (good, bad or neutral?), and other data to points to help provide some direction. Although E Source (www.esource.com), my employer, has a more advanced, utility-focused social media monitoring and analytics platform, which we provide to all of our clients, the no-cost options (like Google Alerts, TweetDeck, Technorati, etc...) are a great place to start.

Armed with better information, you can start to develop a strategy and potentially engage in conversations at an appropriate time and in an appropriate manner. Engagement is about becoming a consistent and trusted voice within the various communities you decide to join. If you are a credible source of good/helpful information/service, you will be able to eventually start conversations, influence discussions, obtain feedback, and have people actually listen to you. The bottom line is that leadership is earned over time and I think it should be a goal for most (not all) utilities.