Hard Conversations in Hard Times: Social Media for Water Utilities

Introduction:

This webcast has now passed.  Please check the Webcasts page for information on any plans for future offerings.  If you are interested in purchasing a CD of a past webcast, please send an email to registration@wef.org.

If you want to communicate with the public, you have to go where the public is -- and that's Web 2.0.   Whether the discussion is bonds or biosolids, membranes or microconstituents, you'll need to use new tools like Twitter and YouTube.

This seminar showed managers, engineers, and operators how to use these technologies.  Other utilities and governmental organizations have found effective ways to use social media, and you can put their ideas to work for your own utility's goals.

Professional Development Hours (PDHs) may be earned for participating in this webcast. 

• Are you communicating with the public about health issues? Explaining your regulatory of financial position? You can get your message across in a YouTube video.


• Do you have an event to announce? A tweet might be the most effective alert for people who already indicated on Twitter that they want to follow your news.


• Do you have photos to share of your utility's employees at work? You can show them off on a Facebook fan page or a Flickr album, and might get some good comments.


• Your utility needs to listen and participate in online dialogue in ways that may have made it uncomfortable five years ago or yesterday. Remember - everyone in the water industry is a communicator, and social media is the way people communicate today.

Cooperating Organizations:

This webcast was organized with support from the WEF Public Communications & Outreach Committee.