Is Nextdoor a Good Social Media Option for You?, With Adam Spencer

EWEB is one year into trying out Nextdoor as a communication tool, and they are seeing good results due to the platform’s focus on geographic filters.

Episode Transcript

Intro: A production of Pioneer Utility Resources. (00:05):
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StoryConnect, helping communicators discover ideas to shapetheir stories and connect with their customers.

Andy Johns: How can utilities use a social media platform Nextdoor? (00:16):
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That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of TheStoryConnect Podcast.
My name is Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer.
And I'm joined on this episode by Adam Spencer, who is thecommunications specialist at Eugene Water and Electric Board
EWEB. Adam, thank you for joining me.

Adam Spencer: Yeah, thanks for having me, Andy. (00:34):
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Andy Johns: So I ran across an article in, full disclosure, I think it was the NWPPA Bulletin. (00:36):
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Just a really cool approach that you guys have.
And one of the first groups that I've seen, one of the firstutilities or broadband providers that I've seen using Nextdoor
as a communications tool, both for listening and for getting amessage out.

(00:58):
So, Adam, let's start right off.
For the folks that aren't as familiar with Nextdoor, kind ofgive us your your high level overview.
What is it?

Adam Spencer: Yeah. Well, Nextdoor is a social media platform. (01:07):
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It looks a lot like Facebook, and it's all local based.
So you, the users, who are called neighbors, enter in theiraddresses, and Nextdoor verifies their address.
And it attempts to pair them into the conversations in theirneighborhoods.
So it's really a good social media platform for localbusinesses, for advertising to places, you know, restaurants,

(01:33):
as well as connecting with your actual neighbors, real people.
You know, social media is going through waves of popularity andunpopularity.
And so we were reticent at first to join Nextdoor and addanother social media platform.
And a few of our team members had had poor experiences onNextdoor.
And when one of our commissioners asked us to look into it,after hearing about some conversations about EWEB that we were

(01:58):
missing and, you know, wanting to address those customerconcerns, we were hesitant.
But looking into it more and then once we joined, we reallyfound that that local piece to it is a real benefit for us
as serving a local geography-based customer base.
And so, you know, you have different neighborhoods.

(02:19):
The people who are on the platform can range how broad they wantto see those conversations, how finite
their neighborhoods are.
And so it's a great place to have utilities be able to targetour customers directly.

Andy Johns: Yeah. And I want to get into the specifics of what you guys are doing there in just a moment. (02:35):
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But before we do, you know, you are faced, I'm sure, like a lotof the folks that we work with at Pioneer, like our own Pioneer
Social team, it seems like there are new social media platformscoming out and, like you said, rising and
falling and popularity.

(02:56):
You know, there's been some that have more of a political slantthan others.
There are different nuances for each one.
How do you guys look at it?
Because it's impossible to be everywhere.
We know, you know, at least from the data we have, Facebook isstill appears to be, in most places, the 800 pound gorilla in the
room. But how do you guys decide when to chase a platform likeyou have with Nextdoor and when you know, to

(03:21):
something else that comes out that you may, you know, watch andsee what happens?
How do you guys kind of make that decision on where to be?

Adam Spencer: Yeah, that's a great question. (03:27):
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You know, we've had conversations about joining TikTok.
And then with the potential ban and with us dealing with safetyissues and those concerns there, we've stayed away.
You know, when Twitter turned to X, there's a bunch of differentplatforms that arose: Bluesky, Mastodon.
But we have a six person team, and we want to make sure we'refocusing our efforts where our customers are.

(03:55):
And so Nextdoor we found this pathway to join.
It's called Nextdoor for public agencies.
And that really made it an easy answer because Nextdoor takesall of those location verified
customers within our service territory, and it automaticallymade them our followers once we join the platform and

(04:17):
could verify our service territory included those customers.
So we went from zero followers on Nextdoor to joining gettingthrough that process, and we ended up with about 68,000
followers just by Nextdoor, verifying our role as a publicutility and having our customers within that service
territory. So we got a direct connection.

(04:39):
We didn't have to build the following.
We didn't have to see who's out there and game out the waters.
We just were able to join and say, "Hey, you're our customers,and now we're here too."

Andy Johns: Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's got to be appealing to folks because growing up to 68,000 on a new platform would have taken a (04:48):
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long time, and probably a lot of money.

Adam Spencer: So yeah, we're on Facebook and, you know, we have 10,000-11,000 followers after being on Facebook for 15 years. (04:57):
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And most, you know, 60% of those are so say on their place oflocation is
Eugene. But we don't know if people have moved and still followus or who they are, really.
So really, just having that Nextdoor sends physical mail to anaddress to verify.

(05:21):
Yes, we are in EWEB's service territory that we know we aretalking to our customers and when they talk back to us, it shows
their neighborhood. So we know how we are affecting their life,their quality of life with construction projects or outages.
And we get a sense of where they're coming from.
And it's just really helpful to see like, yes, hey, real personto real person through these social media platforms in an

(05:45):
age where we're not sure who we're talking to or if we're eventalking to somebody.

Andy Johns: Yeah. This seems like a fantastic opportunity. (05:50):
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Where have you, how have you seen where the conversations aredifferent or the tone is different?
You know, that's one of the things we've looked at with socialmedia is it's better that you're tweaking every message.
I think a lot of the time there's a temptation to just do theexact same thing on LinkedIn that you do on Facebook, that you do
on Instagram.

(06:12):
But we know that there are nuances to each one.
What have you seen in terms of the Nextdoor audience and theconversations they're having?
How are they different, if they are, than some of the otherplatforms?

Adam Spencer: Yeah, I would say there's more civility involved, you know, again, with people. (06:24):
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Andy Johns: Sounds promising. (06:30):
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Adam Spencer: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. (06:31):
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You know, that's like I said, we were a little hesitant at firstbecause of a few bad experiences or, you know, you see some
negative stuff and then, you know, it's displeasing.
But there's that community sense of somebody types in a comment,and they're representing West Deerhorn.
You know, their neighbors see what they say as well.
And there's some actual accountability involved.

(06:54):
As we post representing Eugene Water and Electric Board, it saysmy name and title as well.
So I can develop my own relationship.
And people see my own voice or the projects that I'mrepresenting, and it allows for a little bit more of a rapport to
develop between, you know, this big black box of the publicutility and our customers when it's Adam Spencer is commenting

(07:15):
this about this project and following up with, you know, somemore try to be personable relationship and, you
know, so I think that helps.
Nextdoor also really discourages political discourse.
And so we don't really have to manage or flag things that, youknow, we're talking on a local, very localized level, you

(07:38):
know, sometimes street corners and construction impacts.
And if someone takes that conversation to this nationalpoliticized conversation of, oh, that's because of X, you know,
or this idea or policy or, you know, Nextdoor manages thatitself as well as the neighborhood managers that it has
just to keep things civil and localized.

(07:58):
And, you know, we owe our customers a lot of explaining about whyour rates are rising and what they're paying for
and our strategies to provide them energy for the next 20 years.
And it's a lot to talk about.
And so we just try to keep it to that and Nextdoor helps withthat.
So we've actually had a few events comparing Nextdoor toFacebook and the types of conversations we've had.

(08:24):
We had a big ice storm in January and a lot of positivity onboth platforms.
But I found with Nextdoor it was it was easier to see, you know,where people are coming from and be a little more empathetic to
like, okay. Yeah. You've been without power for ten days, andthat's why you're saying something with some frustration behind
it. And, you know, we're working on it.

(08:45):
And here's some photos of our crews working in yourneighborhood, and we'll get on it.
And it just overall seemed a little more easier to cope with thenegativity that we receive.
And I think just a little less negativity in general.

Andy Johns: Yeah. And I guess that dovetails nicely into the next thing I was going to ask, which is how are your messages different or the (08:59):
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same? Are you guys putting out most of the same information onNextdoor that you've got in other platforms, or are you able to
to capitalize on that hyper local capabilities that it has?
Are most of the same between them or do you do differently?

Adam Spencer: Yeah, one of the really special things about Nextdoor is along with sending in our service territory map, we were able to send (09:18):
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custom maps.
So we have maybe 30-40 different maps that we can say send thispost to our billing cycle 17 if there was a
late issue with that billing cycle.
Or send this post to people who are served by the Hilliardsubstation, because there's something special going on there.

(09:45):
So we can really localize and contain our messaging that'saffecting people.
And so people aren't confused of, oh, is this outage affectingme?
Should I not come home, or should I go somewhere else to worktoday?
Because they're not seeing a message that might not affect them.
So by this public agencies pathway, we've had our GIS team sharewith Nextdoor all of our different

(10:07):
service territory maps by substation, by high risk fire zone sowe can localize those public safety power shut off messaging
to hey, this is only affecting people in the high risk firezones.
So if you see this message on Facebook as like, hey, we have aPSPS, settings are in play and people say, oh, is that going to
affect me?
They're not going to see that on Facebook because it won'taffect them.

(10:30):
So that's really helpful to send that kind of targetedmessaging.
And you know, we have a lot of grants that might affect or beeligible for people in some areas or other areas, or just how
much people want to hear about some of the projects upriverversus in our main urban service territory.
So yeah, it's been really helpful to geographically target andjust systematically target who we're talking to.

(10:54):
Otherwise, you know, a lot of our events and positive spin kindof stuff and things that everybody should know, we do just
share along all the platforms.
So there's definitely a little bit of play.
But then also, you know, having it come from me specificallyversus EWEB posting on Facebook or Instagram, I can add a little
bit more of a personal touch.

(11:16):
So yeah, there's certainly some play in our voice and what we'resaying to whom.

Andy Johns: Yeah. And then you've got the ability on the back end like you said. (11:21):
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I mean, every layer that you add in there, you can you can sendout directly to the folks on that layer, you know, based on the
GIS map.

Adam Spencer: Yeah. (11:33):
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Andy Johns: That's a powerful tool. (11:34):
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Adam Spencer: When you make a post, you can say, "entire following" or you can choose which neighborhoods or which custom areas. (11:36):
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And so that's been helpful, really helpful for constructionprojects to say, hey, here's the area.
Or, you know, we're not flooding the entire service territorywith things that aren't necessarily relevant.
And that makes people check out when you post too much that'snot relevant.

Andy Johns: Yeah, I can imagine there are some broadband providers listening, you know, some either utilities that have done it or some telcos (11:55):
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that are thinking, hey, that's a perfect way to target wherewe're getting fiber, you know, where the construction projects
are. So I was going to get into some of the listening that youguys do.
But while we're talking about the layers, it seems like one ofthe – and I may not be saying that right, the GIS files –

(12:21):
seems like one of the hurdles potentially to somebody startingNextdoor is that start up process.
You know, on most social media platforms, you can be livewithin, you know, a pretty quick amount of time just creating the
account and going, it sounds like there's a lot more to it onthe setup side for Nextdoor.
Do you want to tell us a little bit about what was involved inthat with the verification, the layers?

(12:46):
Are there fees, that sort of thing?
Tell us about getting started.

Adam Spencer: Yeah, I don't recall any fees. (12:50):
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There was some staff time in, you know, sending some taxdocuments, sending in our GIS
files. But, you know, other than that, that's kind of thebenefit of joining that everybody has
to go through to be verified as a neighbor to send something toNextdoor, and then they mail it to you.

(13:13):
So, it's kind of, I guess, it takes a little time, but that'sthe price to play in a platform that is based on locality.
And that assures that you're dealing with real people and youknow, that we are the public agency serving this amount of
territory. So and then because we went through that process, wewere handed, here's the 68,000 customers that are on

(13:35):
Nextdoor in your service territory.
And, you know, here's your opportunity to talk to them withposts and events and polls and then also emergency
alerts. They can receive a push notification.
So, you know, we're also a water utility.
So if there's ever an issue with a boil water notice, we cansend an emergency alert.

(13:56):
And that's one of the harder things is like how do we reachpeople to say, don't drink the water as soon as we need to hear
them, or as soon as we need them to hear that message?
So it takes a little bit of time on up front, but it's certainlyworth it.

Andy Johns: Yeah. Forgive my ignorance on on the platform. (14:11):
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But so, one of the downsides that we've seen from folks, whetherthey're, you know, a lot of folks are using primarily X
right now, formerly Twitter, to post outages.
You know, outage alerts, that sort of thing.
But the downside is if anybody ever goes to your page, youractual, you know, not their feed, but your actual page.

(14:35):
They just see this long list of times when there's been serviceoutages.
You're like, wow, do these people ever actually provide power,or are they just out of power all the time?
Is there a, do you have a page or where people can see that?
Or is it based on everything is tied back to their geography,where they're never going to see something that was posted in a
different geography?

(14:56):
Is that correct?

Adam Spencer: Yeah. Correct. Yeah, so when somebody from, you know, the upriver area, which is where we have a lot more forested areas, (14:57):
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they have more outages.
They'll only see on our home page our posts that are targeted totheir neighborhoods or to the entire service territory.

Andy Johns: Wow. Very cool. Let me talk about listening, because the cool thing about social media, if it's done right, it's a two way (15:15):
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street. You know, you're not just pushing stuff out there allthe time.
How formal do you guys get?
What are the any tools available?
Just in terms of listening and seeing what folks are talkingabout, whether it's about you specifically or whether it's about
other things that you need to be aware of in the community.

(15:37):
What kind of a tool has Nextdoor been for you and the team as alistening tool?

Adam Spencer: Yeah, so that was where we got into it originally, is we were hearing these conversations from neighbors who would call (15:41):
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commissioners and say, hey, you got to hear what people aresaying.
Is this true? Or, you know, can you address these concerns?
And so that's what our commissioners were asking us to getinvolved.
And it turns out that that's not a tool we can use on Nextdoor.

(16:02):
And it makes sense if you think about it.
And so Nextdoor is giving you a backstage pass to those 60,000or however many customers are on Nextdoor in your service
territory as a public agency.
And then if you think about the big brother aspect of like,hey, we're giving this public agency, there's a lot of, you know,
police departments, fire departments, medical services, but, youknow, particularly something like a police department, if then

(16:28):
suddenly, like, they're allowed to see all those conversationsthat might make people less likely to support that on the
platform. So we weren't able to see just, you know, thoseconversations between neighbors or when people
even mention our name.
Only on our posts can we receive comments.

(16:48):
So, you know, we do.
There are things we do, and people respond to that.
And they take to social media to, you know, I'm going to saycommend, but primarily complain.
tThere's not a lot of people just saying, I'm going to say, thisis great.
Right now, unprompted.

Andy Johns: Wouldn't that be nice? (17:04):
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Adam Spencer: They can put that on our posts. (17:05):
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But, you know, we like to think, yeah, people think about us inbad times generally.
The lights aren't working.
Oh, I'm going to see what's going on.
You know, there's construction blocking my commute.
Why is that? You know, otherwise, our 99% that we are working,99% of the time, people don't think about us, and

(17:27):
they don't have to.
So I think that's kind of makes sense in all of that is likewhen we do assert ourselves into their feed and say, hey, this is
what's going on. We like you to know, what do you think?
That's when we hear from them and we get some good, goodcommentary and good conversations.
But otherwise we can't spy on them or get a sense of whatthey're saying about us, you know, as their right as

(17:49):
citizens to have that privacy.

Andy Johns: Right. Got it. (17:52):
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Getting into the nitty gritty parts of it.
I'm guessing, there's some analytics behind it.
Are there things, you know, is it vertical video like reels?
Is it horizontal?
Pictures? Just text?
What kind of what kind of media are you throwing out there?
And then what kind of information are you able to get back?

Adam Spencer: Yeah, we have been on the platform for a year, and we're still exploring and comparing, and we've had a couple of those major (18:13):
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events to directly compare Nextdoor and Facebook.
First of all, just because we've had so many customers jumpingon, we've got a lot higher impressions.
You know, we get a lot better responses to our posts becausethere's just that volume.

(18:37):
We can post, you know, I downloaded a reel from Instagram andposted it to Nextdoor, and it posts as like
a 16x9 in the preview.
But when you click on it, it comes up as a full vertical video,so you don't have to reformat everything for both.
So it does look a little funny in the scroll preview, but thenif you click on it, then it comes up.

(18:59):
Yeah, we post photos.
You can post multiple photos.
You can post polls as just another way to spur engagement, andpeople can see what their neighbors are thinking
and, you know, voting on caption contests and just some fun kindof stuff like that.
And then there's the emergency alerts that end up as pushnotifications.

(19:20):
So, really, it's pretty similar, you know, posts are prettysimilar videos, photos.
And then, you know, Twitter has Twitter polls.
And then that emergency aspect is just an added bonus.
And we, I think, just really only very rarely do we use that.
Just to not abuse it.

(19:42):
So most of it is just hey, if you're on Nextdoor, come and youwant to learn about what we're doing, here's some of that
information. Here's some photos of us participating with aneighborhood event, etc.

Andy Johns: Yeah. Wrapping it up here shortly. (19:55):
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I was looking at some of the other platforms for you guys are onit looks like you're pretty active on YouTube and on Facebook.
Maybe not X or Twitter as much anymore, but kind of rank theplaces where y'all are, and where does
Nextdoor fall into that?
I mean, would you consider it a a primary digital communicationstool?

(20:18):
Is it still behind Facebook for you?
Where, if you can, kind of rank them for me, just in terms ofpriority and usefulness?

Adam Spencer: Yeah, that's a great conversation. (20:26):
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You know, I would still say Facebook is our main contributor.
I think that's also just our mentality.
And then the Facebook business suite, you can post straight toFacebook and Instagram.
You know, personally, I like Instagram more.
That's just what I use.
But there's certainly more following and volume on Facebook.

(20:50):
We use YouTube for some of our bigger program announcements aswell as our board meetings we post there.
And did a good study between YouTube and Facebook advertisingwith a video last year.
I produce videos for EWEB.
And that, I found [inaudible] for about $300 on YouTube and $300on Facebook.

(21:12):
We had about 9,000 views on YouTube, and I think it was onlyaround 5,000 on Facebook.
So, and, you know, more time viewed on YouTube.
So we're starting to use YouTube a little bit more foradvertising.
And just those concepts of what we're doing and why videos are agood way to do that rather than a series of posts.

(21:34):
X you know, once it became X and taken over, it's really beendown throttled, unless you are a
subscriber, and we just didn't subscribe and use that to talk tojournalists to get them aware of things and outage
notifications. And then we're really taking on to LinkedIn withsome new gusto using that to promote our thought leadership in

(21:56):
the field. We're Oregon's largest public utility and a lot oftimes journalists come talk to us.
And just as a way to find new recruits and make sure people areaware of us trying out new things and being a good
place to work.
So we're trying to be in some of those industry conversationsthere.
And then Nextdoor is we're just trying to bring it in andremember to add that and test out all of its features.

(22:21):
And just really put it into our workflow.
So I could really see it becoming our biggest and foremostplatform.
Just because of that followership base and kind of the abilityto talk to real people in our neighborhoods.
So, you know, again, it's surprising to me because I don't thinkof it.

(22:42):
It's not on the big scene, as, you know, one of the big fivetech companies or anything like that.
And I don't really use it personally that much.
And so it's a little surprising to see how many people are onit.
So I think that's something we can look into more is how oftenpeople use it and what they're using it for.
But just that sheer volume that we've inherited by going throughthe paperwork, it really seems like that's a good place for us to

(23:06):
be.

Andy Johns: Yeah. And it's definitely something, you know, you mentioned personal use, is definitely something I'm going to download and (23:08):
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try to get started and just kind of explore the platform alittle more.
Obviously, from this conversation, I'm pretty ignorant when itcomes to to Nextdoor, but I'd like to give it a try.
Last question I have for you.
What advice would you have for somebody who's thinking about it,who's listening to this, or who's been kind of aware of Nextdoor

(23:29):
a little bit like, you know, I'm thinking I may I may give it atry.
What advice do you have for somebody who's where you were a yearago?

Adam Spencer: Yeah. You know, we like I said, we were hesitant and thought it was another thing to manage. (23:37):
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And it is.
You know, it's one of those things.
We are programed and the social media companies know this.
We want to post something and see how many likes we get, and weget that endorphin hit.
And when you take over for a company in a public utility, andit's your job and profession, and you've got a great photo or a

(23:58):
great story to share, you know, you get that same like, oh, Iwant to see people engage with it.
And so it is another place to do that.
And I've just been positively encouraged by the amount offollowing we've gotten, the amount of
engagement we've gotten, the general positivity.

(24:19):
And just as another opportunity to be authentic with yourcustomers.
You know, I pride myself in really caring about what I do andtaking that as another opportunity to say yes.
I am proud to work for this organization, and I understand whatwe're doing.
And I know if you're a customer and you're upset with some ofthe things we're doing, how can we make it work or explain it to

(24:40):
you if you can at least be a little more understanding?
So it's just another opportunity to be proud of what we do,serving our customers and meeting all these
challenging upcoming things we have in the utility industry,providing energy, keeping costs down,
working on climate protecting energy.
So, yeah, it's just we're in a really exciting time in theutility industry, and there's a lot of changes going on.

(25:08):
And this is just another way to try to communicate with folks ofwhat we're doing and why.

Andy Johns: Yeah, sounds like it. (25:14):
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I'm sold. I'm gonna give it a try.
Sounds like a powerful tool.
You know, full disclosure for listeners, this is not somethingthat Pioneer Social is doing right now.
We are looking at it to see if we can offer Nextdoor support forfolks.
But, right now, this is just a really cool idea that Adam andthe team over at Eugene Water and Electric Board are doing, and

(25:36):
thought it was a great way to highlight it.
So Adam, thanks for joining me.

Adam Spencer: Yeah. And I should say I'm not employed by Nextdoor or getting anything from them. (25:39):
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You know, just it's something we looked into and had a goodexperience.

Andy Johns: Wonderful. Well, thanks for sharing that with us. (25:51):
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He is Adam Spencer, the communications specialist at EugeneWater and Electric Board.
I'm your host, Andy Johns with Pioneer.
And until we talk again, keep telling your story.

Outro: StoryConnect is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources, a communications cooperative that is built to share your story. (26:03):
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StoryConnect is engineered by Lucas Smith of Lucky Sound Studio.