When you’re a company looking to make your first foray into the thickets of social media, building your own online community from scratch – and taking on everything from usability issues to platform selection to how you get that critical mass of people to sign up in the first place – can seem pretty daunting, and with good reason.
British Columbia’s public power utility, BC Hydro, is taking a different tack: a toe in the water that could well signal a bigger splash to come. Instead of building their own stand-alone entry in the Web 2.0 sweepstakes and trying to lure users from other sites, they’ve headed to where people are already participating in droves: Facebook.
BC Hydro, with the help of Social Signal, has created Green Gifts, a brand new Facebook Platform application. Green Gifts lets you send a free virtual gift to your friends, including an icon-sized environmentally-themed image, a personal message from you, and a practical Power Smart tip for conserving energy and reducing your environmental footprint.
And it’s that tip that’s the key to the whole thing. Virtual gift-giving is huge on Facebook (as your notification inbox attests soon after you join it). BC Hydro wanted to capture just a little of that activity… and give people a chance to devote it to energy conservation.
Which is emblematic of the approach we’re recommending to many of our clients who are new to the social web (and more than a few who are old hands). You don’t have to create the next Facebook, YouTube or Flickr to successfully engage your public; especially if you’re starting out, join them wherever they’re already participating:
- Chances are good your potential users are already voting with their feet – or, more to the point, their browsers. For instance, judging by the figures for the Vancouver and Kelowna networks alone, there are well over half a million British Columbians registered on Facebook, and the number keeps growing. The province’s goal of becoming energy self-sufficient by 2016 makes it urgent that BC Hydro’s message reach as many ears and eyes as possible… and Facebook’s an ideal vehicle.
- Look for opportunities that offer plenty of participatory infrastructure. The Facebook Platform is loaded with features, beautifully usable and highly flexible. (Want to program in PHP? Go ahead. Java? Sure. Flash? Knock yourself out.) The documentation is extensive and, at least as far as functionality goes, thorough. (Facebook’s admirable determination to prevent spam and abuse, on the other hand, translates into unannounced notification restrictions and usage algorithms that had us climbing the walls once or twice. Eh, we lived.)
- Look for the culture of participation among the users, and work with it. Facebook is a place where people come to keep touch with each other, and often it’s a light touch at that. Green Gifts gives users a way to connect, while spreading the word about conservation.
What a great idea Rob. Good luck with the campaign I’m sure it will be a hit!
That’s a great way to use Social Media, Rob. Going with the flow, you might call it. Thanks for shining a light on it.
Rob
I like this very much
a very smart way of sharing and extending the sharing of information
I would like to suggest a follow up that has people input their personal conservation measures and with it generate a score that can be displayed as a badge of honor. Maybe even encourage a discussion as to how they got their score where it is and perhaps improve upon it some more?
Uber cool
Pierre and Barry, thanks for the encouragement!
And Miro, thanks for the great idea — we’re clearly on the same wavelength. Incidentally, BC Hydro has something kind of similar on their Power Smart page (http://bchydro.com/powersmart), except that there you set your target and track your progress using your actual electricity consumption.