Can Twitter help your utility succeed?

How can your utility use Twitter to improve? Credit: istockphoto

Utilities provide a service to customers - they keep the lights on. It's no secret, however, that utilities often struggle to understand and engage with their customer base. Over the past few years, utilities have begun embracing social media, especially Twitter, in an effort improve the industry's relationship with customers.

Twitter is a powerful (not to mention free) tool in achieving this goal. Twitter's numerous benefits to utilities include improving brand awareness, outage response procedures and community engagement. But despite the power of Twitter, the medium is still somewhat uncomfortable for utilities.

"This is really new territory for the utility business model," said Matthew Burks, a senior manager at energy-consulting firm E Source, in an interview with FierceEnergy.

Burks said utilities need to get over their fear of being transparent and open up to customers. Twitter is likely not a fad, and utilities will need to get comfortable embracing the platform as they look to grow their brand and improve customer service.

"Once you're in its pretty hard to step away," said Burks.

For this slideshow, FierceEnergy talked with two industry analysts and took a look at some of the most effective ways utilities are utilizing Twitter.

Begin the slideshow.

Index:
1. Outage/emergency reporting
2. Better customer service  
3. Connecting with the community
4. Spreading your message    
5. Build trust and transparency   
6. Enjoy future growth and success