Smart Energy GB launches social media channels

Smart Energy GB, the consumer engagement campaign for the national smart meter rollout, has ramped up its activity with the launch of two social media channels this week.

Smart Energy GB launched a Twitter and Facebook account to allow the public to communicate directly with the campaign.

In an interview with Utility Week chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said the move was part of a larger “scaling up” across a range of media channels currently being used by the campaign, ahead of a move into television advertising next year.

The increase in activity follows the number of smart meters installed in the UK reaching 1,327,400, as revealed by the government earlier this month.

Deshmukh said that social channels are going to be “really important” to the campaign, allowing the public to interact with the movement, but that any conversations on when customers will become part of the programme resides with energy suppliers as they are the ones leading the rollout.

“We now live in a world where people as individuals want to interact with mass movements a great deal more, this phenomenon is the same whether people want to have their dialogue with the public debate on the refugee crisis, around international aid, or around a movement on changing technology that is improving our sustainability as a nation, such as the smart meter rollout.

“We are very clear that any individual relationship with any individual customer resides with the energy supplier. Only the energy supplier can actually have a dialogue with the consumer about when exactly the installation can take place, only the energy supplier can deliver that, and then obviously the energy supplier will also deliver the ongoing service.”

The campaign also launched the latest in its series of ‘estimation’ videos and had a series of posters featuring the characters ‘Gaz’ and ‘Leccy’ in Westminster tube station ready for MPs return to parliament at the beginning of this month.