What Does a Cop, a Camera and a Power Line Have in Common?

What does a cop, a camera and a power line have in common? Answer: Twitter

I just returned from the second social media breakfast NH (#SMBNH) event that Leslie Poston (@geechee_girl) of Uptown Uncorked has organized. The meeting was held at Rick's Pond View Restaurant in Kingston which is owned by Rick Korn.

Presenters for this meeting offered us a glimpse into how their organizations are using Social Media and especially Twitter to communicate to their customers. John Daley of the Boston Police Department (@Boston_Police) informed the group how social media has enabled the department to swiftly let their followers know of road closings, how it has enabled followers to let them know of emergency situations and how using text messaging has helped the police with investigations into possible public safety situations. John shared his future vision for using Twitter with some type of integration with 9-1-1. Of course, this is pending both technological and legal aspects that need to be resolved. He foresees using Twitter as an early warning system.

Much media and many, many blogs have told the story about PSNH's use of Twitter during the December 2008 power outage crisis in NH. Martin Murray, the spokesperson for PSNH (@psnh), shared how his followers skyrocketed during the outage. PSNH reported outage status on Twitter live and found it a much more valuable tool than the previous process of uploading a PDF on their website. After a follower suggested to Murray that PSNH share the outage information in simple text format on their website the suggestion was adopted. Martin shared his vision to move this social media tool into the Customer Service team as another means of communicating power outages. This way the customer can either call in to report an outage or send a tweet and visa-versa allowing PSNH to notify customers using multiple media mechanisms.

Daly and Murray made an interesting comment that they entered the Twitter world without a strategy. It may not have been written down, but they certainly did have one in mind - to reach out and communicate to their customers.

The third presentation was by Bill Rogers (@BaldGuyClimate) and Melissa Paly of Now or Never Media. Bill and Melissa are capturing regional stories of businesses and people who are working on solutions to climate change. They capture the stories using both professional and iphone cameras then upload the videos on the website for viewers to enjoy and learn.

The next SMBNH will be in Manchester and the topic will be Education. Hope to see you there, in the mean time catch me on Twitter.

Thanks for reading