This Friday, we’re featuring @TeamPA, the Twitter handle of the Team Pennsylvania Foundation, as our #FF. According to Team PA’s website, the foundation is “a non-partisan charitable non-profit created in 1997 to bridge the gap between government and the private sector and allow both sides to partner for the betterment of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”Why you should follow @TeamPAWe’ve found plenty of reasons to follow @TeamPA, but one of the greatest is because they post truly unique content that helps inform followers of key policy and economic development issues affecting our commonwealth. They also tweet stories about leaders making a difference in Pennsylvania and tweet live from meetings that could shape the future of our Commonwealth.Even if you miss the many events that Team PA tweets from, their cache of photographs on their Twitter page allows followers to feel as if they were right there listening to the policy-maker or viewing a presentation about Pennsylvania’s economic development.Additionally, we follow @TeamPA because they understand, and communicate, how important natural gas is for Pennsylvania. According to @TeamPA, “The current natural gas boom and competitive energy pricing will continue to play a large role in strengthening manufacturing in Pennsylvania, and helping ensure energy and petro-chemical related industries can remain competitive in Pennsylvania.”Q & A with @TeamPAWe spoke with James Mentzer, the Director of Communications for the Team Pennsylvania Foundation, to get the scoop about the Team PA handle’s best practices. Mentzer said that though he is responsible for most of the foundation’s tweeting, the platform is collaboratively managed to ensure a “constant stream of content flowing and a variety of voices provides a fresh and interesting perspective to our work.”Q: How do you cultivate and maintain your (almost 4,000!) followers? Like everything in communication, it is all about two things: 1) valuable unique content, and 2) real engagement with the audience. We strive to be transparent about our public policy work and the issues affecting the future of our state, and I think people desire to be more engaged in public service and bettering Pennsylvania. We also truly love sharing Pennsylvania’s story and the stories of those Pennsylvanians and PA businesses making a difference in the lives of so many people here and around the world. Those people and employers deserve to be celebrated and honored, and Twitter is one way to achieve that goal.Q: Please tell us a little about what @TeamPA does.Team PA, and all of our work, is guided by the belief that Pennsylvania can be better through partnership. Our government can be more effective and efficient, our communities can be fertile grounds for business growth, and our children can be provided the best educational opportunities available. Team PA is a non-partisan charitable non-profit created in 1997 to bridge the gap between government and the private sector and allow both sides to partner for the betterment of all Pennsylvanians. Q: How do you find and manage the content that you post on Twitter?We use a variety of ways to find and distribute content via our Twitter feed. We follow and retweet smart and interesting people, tweet stories posted by our partners in the public and private sectors, we seek headlines from news services that we believe will be of interest to our followers and/or are directly related to our work, and we tweet fresh new content that we post daily at teampa.com. Q: How has Twitter helped you to connect with small business owners and natural gas industry leaders?Too often, the most important issues affecting the future of Pennsylvania’s business community is discussed behind closed doors in Harrisburg. We believe that informing and engaging the public in these discussions is the key to wise decision-making. We have routinely been able to involve natural gas industry leaders, small business owners, and other participants in some of our key work by using Twitter as a communication tool.Q: Anything else that you’d like to add?Twitter is an integral part of Team PA’s communications program. It provides us the opportunity to share in real-time coverage of our events and a platform to link to stories the same day they occur. Twitter’s immediacy drives our desire to communicate in a timely manner not only about our work, but of our public and private sector partners as well, and it allows us to share with the world the ongoing story that shines a spotlight on our great state.We’re inspired by @TeamPA’s passion for the commonwealth and their desire to remain transparent about important issues that shape it. Read our blog each Friday for a new #FF feature.
Bill serves as an External Affairs Coordinator for Coterra Energy. He is focused on building community knowledge and support for the organization and industry at large.
Before his time with Coterra Energy, Bill was the original Field Director for Energy in Depth’s Northeast Marcellus campaign. Within this two-year position, Bill worked to engage, educate, and mobilize supporters of Marcellus Shale development across New York and Pennsylvania. Bill received his B.S. in Management, a B.A. in History, and an MBA from Misericordia University.