Start Date
16-8-2018 12:00 AM
Description
By leveraging new information systems and technologies, social media and the smart grid are transforming the company-customer relationship and providing opportunities for co-creation of value. In the smart grid, individuals will be able to participate in distributed renewable energy generation, for instance by installing rooftop solar panels. In effect, many customers will become electricity ‘prosumers’. As a result, there will be a need for greater shared understanding of environmental and renewable energy concerns between utilities and their customers. Although the current use of social media by electric utilities is limited, it could represent an important media choice for creating engagement with their customers. In this research, we analyzed 7180 tweets of 31 U.S. utilities over a five-month month period. We found that utilities with more prosumers are more active and have higher follower engagement on renewable energy tweets. Practical implications and directions for future research are presented.
Recommended Citation
Corbett, Jacqueline; Savarimuthu, Tony; and Mohanna, Mahmoud, "Are Electricity Prosumers More Engaged? An Analysis of Brand-Follower Engagement on Twitter" (2018). AMCIS 2018 Proceedings. 8.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2018/SocialComputing/Presentations/8
Are Electricity Prosumers More Engaged? An Analysis of Brand-Follower Engagement on Twitter
By leveraging new information systems and technologies, social media and the smart grid are transforming the company-customer relationship and providing opportunities for co-creation of value. In the smart grid, individuals will be able to participate in distributed renewable energy generation, for instance by installing rooftop solar panels. In effect, many customers will become electricity ‘prosumers’. As a result, there will be a need for greater shared understanding of environmental and renewable energy concerns between utilities and their customers. Although the current use of social media by electric utilities is limited, it could represent an important media choice for creating engagement with their customers. In this research, we analyzed 7180 tweets of 31 U.S. utilities over a five-month month period. We found that utilities with more prosumers are more active and have higher follower engagement on renewable energy tweets. Practical implications and directions for future research are presented.