First-Ever Look at Social Media in the Wind Industry

We're releasing the first-ever study of social media use by major wind companies, showing a nearly 63 percent usage rate of the major social media channels by 14 top wind companies. But with the industry's rapid growth comes an opportunity for wind companies to use social media strategies to drive sales and secure public affairs outcomes.

This study comes in the form of our new e-book, Social Wind: Who’s Doing What, Where We Can Go And The Marketer’s Case To CEOs For Why We Should Go There. It's the first effort to look specifically at the wind industry's use of social media.

Based on our review of 14 companies and the six major channels used by them, we found:

• Wind companies are widely using social media.
• However, they are using it almost entirely as a distribution tool.
• There is a 63.10% usage rate across major channels.
• Results vary widely by company with:
  • 10-fold difference between those who post the most and least frequently.
  • Significant difference in audience engagement rates.
• The industry makes far heavier use of photos and links than videos in its social media posts.
• Companies' greatest engagement rates are being achieved on Facebook.
• CEOs all have LinkedIn accounts, but none are using them to post thought leadership pieces to their networks on a regular basis.

In Social Wind, we explore best practices in social media, how top wind companies are using the top social media platforms and what more they can do to fully leverage its power.

As we work in social media, we see that most of the conversation around best practices is based on B2C companies, particularly those with point-of-purchase websites. There's much less discussion for B2B companies, especially those selling large, expensive industrial equipment. With its disruptor status and broad popularity, we think the wind industry has a unique set of needs for social engagement to reach customers, investors and policy makers.

We want to engage wind industry communicators and marketers about how the industry should use social media – and digital media, more broadly – to drive industry sales and success. We’re already preparing to begin Digital Wind, the next e-book in this series. Let us know what you think. Your feedback will be critical to making it a useful offering.

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