12A

I don’t think I’m going to be able to come up with four additional online marketing tools that water districts can use. Water districts not trying to drum up business, the primary use of social media by water districts is to push information out to constituents. Examples would include; incentives, new rules or laws, or to push a program(s) such as landscape water efficiency. In fact, many times we are telling our customers minimize the use of our product such as was the case during the latest drought. So, our social media needs are different from a business that seeks to keep and find customers.

 

The only additional online marketing tool that I know if useful for water districts is Nextdoor.  If you are unfamiliar with Nextdoor, it functions like a community bulletin board. Users can post information on a newsfeed that can be viewed only by other users in their local Nextdoor “neighborhood”.  For example, lost cats and dogs are common posts, or inquiring about police activity.  Nextdoor is organized into “neighborhoods” that are sections of cities. Water agencies are easily able to target community messages, such as announcing a meeting or event to the Nextdoor users their service territory.  It’s turned out to be a really useful tool for local water agencies.

 

Water districts do use Google apps, but not for marketing to an online audience. We may use Google Docs & Google Earth for example to help create new programs that the public can participate in, but not as a marketing tool, the Google offerings are used behind the scene to create front facing materials.  If you are in a business that collaborates with others businesses or you have multiple locations/and/or partners, Google’s apps are a great way to work together and share.