Chevron: Pulse Report: The State of Online Conversation about Energy Issues — Live from BlogWell

3:50 — Kurt Vanderah introduces Chevron‘s Manager of Corporate Interactive Communications, Robert Raines.

3:51 — Kurt: This case study is sponsored by Compendium Blogware.

3:52 — Robert talks about Chevron’s social media monitoring program. Robert: In 2008, we started monitoring social media. We did real-time monitoring and used quarterly reports. RFP was our monitoring vendor, and we worked with Edelman and SM2.

3:54 — Robert: In 2009, we started to think about the data we collected and how it would be useful. This turned into the Dashboard Project. It would be something that would pull data together — a unique resource to build awareness of energy issues. The target audiences were energy experts and social media mavens.

3:56 — Robert clicks through a series of slides showing the type of content found in these reports.

3:57 – Robert discusses project challenges. Robert: One challenge was with scope — size matters. When we first started, we had tons of data and we wanted to build an interactive tool that let people build charts, pick topics, etc. After brainstorming, we came up with a 7-headed elephant that was too much to take on. We decided to use the report we already had and publish it for people to use.

3:59 — Robert: This led to some challenges with identity and branding. We did some research on how people name whitepapers. We came up with Chevron Pulse Report. In doing this, we had to consider trademarks and domain names.

4:00 – Robert: We then designed a wordmark around the report name, and included “prepared by Edelman” to give it some additional credibility. We also created a description in the wordmark to give people more information. We now use this wordmark on Twitter, YouTube, report covers, and in other areas.

4:01 –  Robert: In terms of content, layout, and format, we had to get rid of the “Inside Baseball” jargon. We had to redesign charts and tables for consistency.

4:02 – Robert: In terms of interactivity, we produced a couple of videos and infographics and created an email alert to let people know when new reports were published.

4:04 – Robert shows a series of slides as examples of what distribution channels look like (Twitter, YouTube, Slideshare, Scribd, etc.)

4:05 – Robert: It takes a village. Many people and resources go into producing this report.

4:06 – Robert: We launched the report on April 30 and have since had 15,000 reads, 3,000 landing page visits, 2,000 downloads, and 1,000 video plays of our 2 videos.

4:07 – Robert: We have also gotten some third party endorsements, which has been nice.

4:09 – Robert: To recap, the Chevron Pulse Report is a social media monitoring whitepaper used to engage and inform.

Q&A

Q: Keith from Rogers Communications: When you launched Q2 and Q3 reports, did you touch on the problems happening in the Gulf?

A: It’s not about us. We try to minimize the editorial comments we might make. You can expect the discussion volume to increase because of these problems. Issues around the Gulf spill will likely spike the charts, but we try not to editorialize.

Q: Have you done any type of monitoring specifically for the Chevron brand?

A: Yes, we do monitor the Chevron keyword, but we decided this was not something we’d include in these reports. These reports are about showing Chevron as a thought-leader in the space.

Q: Kurt: Can you touch on your YouTube videos?

A: We used YouTube as a sharing platform, to show people what’s in the report, since it’s not intuitive based on the name. The videos let people know what the reports are all about.

Q: Paula from First Tennessee: How do you define energy experts, and what do you expect them to do with the information?

A: It’s a pretty broad audience — it includes anyone who is interested in the energy business, people who talk about it and who could potentially touch Chevron. It’s not so much from a retail product standpoint as it is from a corporate standpoint.