Local co-ops get social

September 02, 2011

Electric power co-ops have long been recognized for being friendly with their members. Now many of them are becoming friends with those members through social media sites such as Facebook.

While most Facebook members use the site (and others) to stay in touch with friends and share the details of their lives, co-ops are discovering other uses for their own pages. “It’s another avenue for keeping in contact with our members,” explained Carolyn Kilby, Manager of Marketing, Communications and Office Services for Parke County REMC. “We’re staying in touch not only with our younger members, but also with many of our older ones, too.”

“In critical situations, such as when we’ve had an ice storm or when we need people to cut back on their energy use, we can get a message out very quickly,” she added. “It’s real-time and people see the post right when you need it. You don’t have to wait until it gets on the radio or TV.” Parke County has been using Facebook since late last year. “I think we have to use any avenue we can to communicate, since we have such a wide variety of members these days.”

Susan Wagoner, Director of Marketing for Miami-Cass REMC, says that her co-op started using Facebook when a local member was featured on television’s “Extreme Makeover” show. “We had been debating about whether to use Facebook, but we had all these photos from ‘Extreme Makeover,’ so we decided to post a gallery,” she recalled. “From there, we started putting up announcements about outages, and it just grew from there. I’ve been using it to promote everything from Touchstone Energy camp for sixth graders, to our youth tour to Washington, to our scholarship program.”

When a major storm led to widespread outages, Carolyn went out and took photographs of Parke County’s crews as they raced to restore service. “We put those pictures out on Facebook to show what we were doing, and received supportive comments from members. I also have links for the TV and radio stations on our site, so that when you post something on Facebook, the media sees it, too.”

“Our website went down, so we posted updates about that and told people how they could pay bills until the site was restored,” said Susan. “We’ve also posted requests for voluntary reductions, information about holiday closings, and tips from our Energy Advisor, Kim Burton. He does most of the posting to our page.”

Co-ops that haven’t moved into the social media world often cite a fear of negative comments, but Susan and Carolyn both say that hasn’t been an issue. “We had one member say something negative about not being able to get through on the phone line during an outage,” Carolyn recalled. “One of our other members immediately came to our defense and told her she needed to be patient because we were doing everything we could. We didn’t even have to address it, and that was nice to see.”

Susan recommended that co-ops remind employees to be discreet about what they post, so nothing reflects negatively upon the co-op. “If an employee’s profile mentions they work for the co-op and they say something negative about the co-op or a specific service, it can be damaging.”

She also suggests that co-op staff familiarize themselves with Facebook before starting a page. “Before I started using Facebook, I really didn’t understand what it was. Then, once I started using it, I saw the fun people were having and recognized the ways the REMC could use it. One concern we had was how much time it would take, but it hasn’t really cut into our time. It’s easy to start small and go from there.”

Carolyn also suggests gathering plenty of content before you begin. “I came up with a list of 20 or 30 energy saving tips, so we could constantly be putting something new on our page. We also use it to promote events like our annual meeting. It’s important to keep your page fresh.”