The Hydrogen Energy Association (formerly UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association) is the oldest UK association dedicated to supporting stakeholders across the Hydrogen sector and the Fuel Cell industry.
It boasts more than 120 members in a range of industries and cover the whole of the market in terms of hydrogen power including transport and heat.
It approached Satsuma back in 2022 to ask for help developing a communications strategy to meet a series of key objectives.
These included raising the reputation of the HEA across multiple industries, promoting members and attracting new members, promoting the sector and seeking the right policy framework to showcase work, vision, and values. We were also responsible for the rebrand from UKHFCA to HEA and the creation of a new website.
We manage the social media output of UK HFCA – primarily on LinkedIn and Twitter, all PR and marketing provision to secure maximum exposure in national, regional and trade publications, and full internal communications support.
We started with a full analysis of social media outputs and competitors and created a strategy which would make an immediate impact on both platforms, raising reputation and engaging the organisation in relevant and thought-provoking debate and conversation in the sector.
This was aligned with a PR strategy that looked at target publications where we could raise the reputation of the HEA and maximise exposure for the right reasons. This included connecting with key political and environmental correspondents at national broadsheets and journalists at specific trade press publications.
Our work has included launching and publicising the work of numerous working groups within the organisation – many of which have release key positioning papers on issues such as Hydrogen Combustion and Fuel Cells for Transportation.
For the last two years we have supported the organisation of the HEA Annual Conference including live tweeting the event and interviewing MPs and government ministers attending. We also supported a lobbying event at the House of Parliament in 2023 around hydrogen’s future development and deployment in the UK.
In 2022 we carried out a full evaluation of the brand for the executive board crafting a new vision, mission and values statement to improve traction and engagement with members. In 2023 we went on to carry out the full rebrand of the organisation to become the HEA, including all comms around the change. We also designed, developed and built a brand new website.
In our first month of working with UK HFCA we secured Hydrogen Fuel News, Utility Week, Hydrogen Central, Hydrogen Fuel News, Hydrogen East, American Nuclear Society, Energy News, Motor Transport, Business Green, Fuel Oil News, Power and Energy Solutions, Gas World, H2 View and Energy News.
In just four weeks we saw a 110.9% growth in followers on LinkedIn and a staggering increase in engagement with 15,000 post impressions. This was replicated on Twitter with tweet impressions up by 263%.
We continue to post on LinkedIn and Twitter for HEA three times a week with a monthly average of 20,300 page impressions, 19,360 post impressions and 276 new followers month on month (average 3.97% increase) for LinkedIn, or primary platform for engagement, helping us target and converse with the B2B audience that is optimum for HEA.
Twitter, has a monthly average of 2,897 impressions and 12 new followers (0.62%) month on month.
Our website was launched during the 2023 conference and website analytics since then have proved encouraging up to an average of 9,398 page views per month.
The HEA recently featured in an in depth exploration of hydrogen in The Telegraph as a result of our work building relationships with national influential journalists.
In 2023 we also embarked on a push to elevate CEO Celia Greaves as a spokesperson for hydrogen by undertaking research into speaker opportunities for HEA. This proved
fruitful and among opportunities secured were UK CCUS and Hydrogen Decarbonisation Summit in February, Engineering Challenges in the Hydrogen Economy 2023 in March, the ITT Hub in May at Farnborough International Exhibition Centre, Innovation Zero and the H2View Conference, also in May, Energy Insurance London 2023 on Fri, October 13 and a GHD breakfast event in November.
We were also offered slots at Energy Transition Europe, Energy Risk Europe, and the World Capital Assembly and arranged podcast appearances on The Interchange and
HydroGenerally.
Engagement and coverage for HEA continues to rise and we have expanded our contract with the organisation to meet an increased demand for our expertise.
“Our colleagues at Satsuma are doing a great job of increasing our social media profile and we’ve seen increasing alignment with our messaging and positioning as they’ve got to know us. This is also evident in press releases and articles and gives us a strong basis from which to further develop our collaboration.”
Celia Greaves, CEO, UK HFCA
