legal issues re: social media for the regulated utility industry
DESCRIPTION
Social Media for Regulated UtilitiesTRANSCRIPT
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR THE
REGULATED UTILITY
INDUSTRYCarolyn Elefant
Nextgenerationenergylaw.com
@nxtgenenergylaw
October 2011
Why bother with social media in an old school industry?
24-7 world where
information travels at the
speed of light
Less costly than
traditional tools
A Mobile World…
Where will you get people’s attention?
Social media builds and reinforces
connections in a collegial industry
What is social
media?
Conversations taking place 24/7 online
Facebook Glossary:
Personal page (friends) v. biz page (“like”)
“Tagging” - identification mechanism
Privacy settings
Policies page
Twitter Glossary:
Tweet- 140 character communication
Follower - those who read your tweets
To tweet - verb for using Twitter
@carolynelefant - addressing another user
DM - direct message
RT - retweet (forward the message to others)
# - hashtag - categorizes conversations
Three Common Features of SM
•User generated content
•Third party platform
•Mixes personal & professional; content and branding
=Loss of control and formality
Legal Issues Re: Utility Use of Social Media•Rate Recovery Issues:
•Education v. Branding
•Credit for consumer-generated information
•Affiliate Codes of Conduct - Joint marketing & undue preference
•Privacy of customer data
•Record-keeping for regulatory proceedings
•Counterfeit accounts
•Safety and customer relations - accuracy and responsiveness
•Regulators
•Ex parte contact
•Prejudging issues
Questions for the future
Social media use for public outreach and stakeholder input?
Treatment of consumer-generated content?
Metrics to evaluate effective use?
Duty to monitor/responsibility for falsely transmitted 3rd party content?
Limits on inviting disclosure of information?
Universal access?
Overseeing accuracy?
Role of commissions v. AG/FTC?
Record-keeping protocols?
Regulatory approaches to an evolving area:
•Regulation v. guidance & best practices
•Avoid platform-specific regulations which will be overtaken by rapid change
•Social media policy
•Develop ways to enable use of social media. Prohibiting use is not a “social media” policy
•Get your hands dirty!
•If your GC/attorneys aren’t using social media, how can they help you develop effective policies?
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@carolynelefant, @nxtgenenergylaw
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Where to find me online:
Carolynelefant.com
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