How To Talk About Power
Missouri River Energy Services works in partnership with 61 member communities in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota to provide energy and energy services. There’s just one little challenge to talking about what they do. It’s a little bit different from community to community.
Whether we’re talking gas, electrical, solar, wind, hydro or some combination, it was always about power. MRES helps store, regulate and deliver power. Being a group of publicly owned utilities gives them a lot of power to impact communities in ways beyond the light switch or water faucet. At HenkinSchultz, we had to ask ourselves, “How do we get that message across in a fun social way?”
We developed quarterly “Value of Public Power” digital campaigns for Facebook and Twitter. In some cases, we provided helpful seasonal tips on electricity and safety. But mostly, we set out to educate communities on why public power matters and to build good will. We wanted content production that was relevant to our target audience.
Individual communities could repost and tag as their own, even add information to the social graphics to show local impact. Many of the digital assets we created were informational in nature. Part of having a good social presence is to have the right mix of content.
In social media marketing, it’s always good to inform, entertain and promote. If you lean too heavily in one direction, you can turn your audience off. And that’s never a good idea for power companies.
The digital assets of our ongoing campaign are companion pieces to our other executions:
- Radio
- Newspaper
- Public Relations
- Infographics
- Bill Stuffers
- Video