CONNECT, Local Initiatives
Twitter Your Way to News Coverage
KANSAS CITY, Mo.—Sending out a press release is so 1990s. Why not tweet or blog?
Mary Klecker-Green said Basin Electric has had great success using social media. (Photo By: Michael W. Kahn)
Basin Electric Power Cooperative is actively using social media and reaping the benefits—even the unexpected ones.
“We tweet on a daily basis and we’ve had some local reporters pick up on some of our tweets and do stories,” said Mary Klecker-Green, public and member communications supervisor at the Bismarck, N.D.-based G&T. “They were things that we didn’t necessarily think were worthy of a press release, but they were putting out there on Twitter.”
Klecker-Green shared that and some of Basin Electric’s other success stories during the May 11 general session at Connect 2010 here. One reaches all the way to midtown Manhattan.
“The ‘Today’ show visited our blog,” Klecker-Green said. “We had this great story about an employee who did this amazing random act of kindness.”
Klecker-Green follows the NBC program on Twitter and sent it a link to the story and video about how the vacationing employee found an expensive digital camera and did some detective work to locate its owner.
“Not only did I get a direct message back saying that was a great video, but then they started following me on Twitter. And more importantly, the ‘Today’ show went to our blog.”
A storm on April 2 that took down some 12,000 poles in Mor-Gran-Sou Electric Cooperative’s service territory led to a crucial social media blitz. Basin Electric pitched in with a special Web page, a banner on its home page, links to Mor-Gran-Sou’s Facebook page, and a widget that pulled all of the storm videos on YouTube.
“During that time our blog saw an all-time high viewership,” said Klecker-Green, adding that the bulk of the credit goes to Flasher, N.D.-based Mor-Gran-Sou.
“They were masterful in the way they handled it. Every comment was positive,” Klecker-Green said. “What a public relations nightmare, but it ended up being the opposite of a nightmare. And now their consumers are completely behind them because they were there, they were answering, and they were having those conversations.”
Related content: Connect Conference coverage
Tags: Co-op News, CONNECT, Local Initiatives, Social Media