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EERE Communications

EERE Web Coordinators Meeting10/15/2015

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Web Coordinators Meeting• Around the Room – Carolyn Hinkley• National Drive Electric Week Campaign Tag Case Study –

Alexis Powers and Shannon Shea• Energy Saver Site Enhancement and Appliance Energy Use

Calculator – Allison Casey

Agenda

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Web Coordinators Meeting• Around the Room – Carolyn Hinkley• National Drive Electric Week Campaign Tag Case Study –

Alexis Powers and Shannon Shea• Energy Saver Site Enhancement and Appliance Energy Use

Calculator – Allison Casey

Agenda

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About Google Analytics Campaign Tags

• Campaign tags measure traffic from various channels.

• Campaign tags measure actions taken by users from each channel. • Note: You must have measurable goal.

• A campaign tag is a special code - query string - added to the destination URL.

• Campaign tags are only added to channels outside of the website (e.g, email and social media). Pages within energy.gov are tracked through traditional Google Analytics reports.

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Case Study: National Drive Electric Week Campaign

Project goals:1. Determine the effectiveness of DOE, EERE, and Energy Saver social

media driving traffic to NDEW 2015 electronic content via:• DOE Twitter• DOE Facebook• Energy Saver Twitter• Energy Saver Facebook• EERE Facebook.

2. Determine the effectiveness of each channel in driving engagement.

Note: This report focuses on the results of the campaign tags and is not a complete analysis of traffic from all sources.

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NDEW 2015 Overview

• VTO led the Share Your EV Story social media campaign to promote the new EV Everywhere website and encourage people to share personal experiences with driving plug-in electric vehicles. • The campaign ran from

September 12-20, 2015.• The new EV Everywhere

site went live on September 14, 2015.

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NDEW Outreach Summary

• 12 platforms featured #ILoveEVs posts (DOE blog, EERE blog, EnergySaver blog, Clean Cities blog, DOE Facebook, EERE Facebook, EnergySaver Facebook, Ernest Moniz’s Facebook, DOE Twitter, EnergySaver Twitter, Ernest Moniz’s Twitter, DOE Instagram)

• 38 blogs and social media posts went live during the 9-day campaign

• 548 likes and 144 shares were logged across all social media platforms

Note: The numbers above reflect activity by all related DOE platforms, some of which did not incorporate campaign tags.

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NDEW Campaign Results: September 12-20, 2015

Account Description Clicks Sessions

DOE Twitter 1698 72

Energy Saver Twitter 891 57

DOE Facebook 40 32

Energy Saver Facebook 18 12

EERE Facebook 16 11

TOTAL 2663 184

• The tracked campaigns accounted for 184, or 26%, of all 708 sessions logged on energy.gov/eere/eveverywhere during the 9-day campaign.

• Related, but untracked, efforts such as Ernest Moniz’s social media posts, are not included in these campaign results.

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EV Everywhere Website Traffic

• The new website has received 2,700 page views and 986 sessions to date

• National Drive Electric week accounts for 76% of total page views and 72% of sessions

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NDEW Campaign Analysis: Social Media Posts

• Twitter accounted for 70% of campaign-driven sessions.• The DOE Twitter channel accounted for 39% of all sessions from

social media campaigns.• Of the 12 social media platforms that featured posts related to

NDEW, 6 did not incorporate campaign tags (DOE blog, EERE blog, Clean Cities blog, Ernest Moniz’s Facebook, Ernest Moniz’s Twitter, DOE Instagram).

• Using widely accepted hashtags was more effective than creating a new one. – #NDEW2015: ~1,600 unique uses – #ILoveEVs: ~200 unique uses

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Lessons Learned

• The most popular content related to cost savings and facts/statistics.• The short videos did surprisingly poorly on social media. Photos overlaid with

quotes or statistics did substantially better on all platforms.• The tracking campaign was useful to see where traffic to the EV Everywhere site

was originating from. However, buy-in from all DOE-related efforts is essential.• Twitter was much more effective than Facebook at driving traffic.• Having a hashtag for our efforts was good, but it was better that we also used an

existing one in order to be part of a larger conversation. It would be great to continue using #ILoveEVs and #EVEverywhere going forward.

• Reaching out to stakeholders to spread the word and use the hashtag on their social media accounts was very effective.

• Developing messages specifically for particular DOE social media accounts was effective. As expected, the more technology-oriented posts did very well on the DOE and EERE accounts, while EnergySaver had a more personal touch.

• Facebook chats are of use, but challenging to get participation for. We only had about 4 questions on the DOE Facebook chat, and ended up answering a few more on Twitter.

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Web Coordinators Meeting• Around the Room – Carolyn Hinkley• National Drive Electric Week Campaign Tag Case Study –

Alexis Powers and Shannon Shea• Energy Saver Site Enhancement and Appliance Energy Use

Calculator – Allison Casey

Agenda

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• Website enhancement project• Appliance and electronic energy use calculator

Energy Saver

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Background• EERE’s consumer-oriented website• 1 of 4 page views on energy.gov

are on Energy Saver• ES home page is second most

visited page on energy.gov• Migrated in 2012• First of EERE’s sites to migrate• Migrated as nested group under

energy.gov• Weekly coordination with DOE PA

Energy Saver Site Enhancement

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Issues• No navigation• Many links to different types

of pages from home page• Energy.gov topic pages used

as second level, (similar to EERE’s topic pages), but with several problems:• URL not within Energy Saver• Breadcrumbs don’t return

users to Energy Saver• Sub-topic areas hidden at

the bottom of the page• Page design doesn’t easily

accommodate all topics and subtopics

Topics

Articles

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Issues

• All pages used “article” content type• Dated at the top (quickly appeared outdated if no updates

needed)• Making an update and changing the date meant the page

rose to the home page• Home page could only be updated by changing the dates

of articles• Articles for both evergreen and blog content meant we

couldn’t report on website and blog separately

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Scope

• Move into office template• Add top navigation and left navigation

– Discontinue use of energy.gov topic pages as second-level of “navigation”

• Redesign home page• Convert articles to pages• Increase prominence of social media

Challenges• IA approval – both EERE and DOE PA• First time moving nested group to top-level site• Article to page transition not fully seamless

– Some blocks built into template lost– Node IDs changed; some links still say “Converted”

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Next Steps

• Revisiting page templates – new blocks, references• Adding blog topics• Retiring “tips” pages that correspond to printed guide; better integrating

tips into regular content

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Appliance and Electronic Energy Use Calculator

• Background:– Estimating Appliance and Home Electronic Energy Use is consistently one of the top

pages on Energy Saver (and energy.gov)– The page offers step-by-step instructions for estimating energy use

• 5 steps; requires several calculations• Users need to look up appliance wattage and utility rate for most accurate

estimate– Users have requested a simple calculator for years

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Scope

• Simple calculator to estimate energy use

• Sample appliances and wattages provided (with ability to change)

• Use EIA data from API to provide utility rate averages for each state

Challenges• PA approval to use map

content type for coding• Responsive, mobile-friendly

design that works in hero spot

• Wattage values

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Next Steps

• Promote via website and social media• Review any user feedback• Consider enhancements

– Product comparisons– Saved results; social media sharing– Cumulative results for total home energy use– Potential savings when switching to ENERGY STAR

Questions?

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Next meeting: November 19, 1:00-2:00 ET11-12 Mountain

Golden: X300 & HQ: 5E-069