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Who is really shaping the energy industry?

05.01.2026

Who is really shaping the energy industry?

One thing we’ve learned in more than 20 years working in regulated, scientific sectors is that scientific conversation online spreads all over the world incredibly rapidly. 

If you are a leader or communicator in energy, I know that shaping the future in your sector is important to you. But if you’re like many of the leaders I speak with, you might not yet have a full picture.

Our recent research into online stakeholders in the energy sector shows that there is a vast global conversation taking place. When we distilled the social media posts of some key energy stakeholder groups, including journalists, government leaders, scientists and industry voices, we saw that while the viewpoints expressed are diverse, they are often shaped by the other voices they interact with online.

With this in mind, understanding which stakeholder groups are interacting with which others can be a useful way to think about your own messages and engagement. 

Political events create online ripples

Take President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” – or One Big Beautiful Bill Act – which was signed into US law in the middle of 2025. The bill was widely described as the core of Trump’s second-term agenda. It’s a broad piece of legislation, covering taxation, families, defence, welfare and aid, and also energy.

The energy part of the bill includes roll-backs of clean energy tax credits, as well as support for fossil fuel development.  Some might say it was a strategic pivot on energy; others might describe it as an ”about turn”. 

So naturally, we saw a diverse range of responses to the bill.

White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, posted a wide list of benefits the bill promised, including one simple line on energy: “Energy Dominance”.

Others praised the shift towards nuclear energy that would result in the United States. 

“The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) just solidified Nuclear’s place in America’s energy future”, posted nuclear engineer and founder of Hadron Energy, Samuel Gibson, followed by an explanation of the incentives for the nuclear industry, vs a phase-out of credits for wind and solar projects.

Others lamented the damages that could befall the US renewables industry, and the impact on the environment.

“The Chinese simply can’t believe their luck”, posted New York Times reporter, Trip Gabriel.

Meanwhile, Jesse Jenkins, a significantly impactful professor and energy sector expert, added his view. Prof. Jenkins’ analysis showed a prediction of how much the reduction in greenhouse emissions would slow down under the new bill.

What drives stakeholders to post about energy?

When we look at how the volume of conversation varies through the year among stakeholder groups, the data suggest that different drivers of conversation inspire particular stakeholder groups to post: a conversation spike among one stakeholder group does not necessarily correlate with a spike in volume across all the other groups.

On first impression, then, we might think that these stakeholder groups exist in isolation from each other, in echo-chambers of their own.

But in practice, what seems to happen is that it is often external events that trigger conversation that is particularly interesting to one particular stakeholder group – the energy experts, for example.

Among all the online noise about energy, journalists and the media are a particularly noisy stakeholder group. However, our analysis shows that it is the energy experts – scientists and engineers in energy, renewables, fossil fuels and nuclear who collectively dominate the volume of conversation, while it’s the politicians who post the most energy-related updates per individual.

To understand what’s really going on, we need to go deeper. When we consider the role of social media in stakeholder engagement, it’s helpful to identify who, if anyone, is engaging with the content. We might want to understand who is making an impact: which kinds of stakeholders, and more specifically, which stakeholders?

Our energy online conversations network illustrates how certain stakeholders mention each other in conversations about energy. The most-mentioned individuals or accounts appear larger, while the most engaged appear more central in the network map. 

This tool allows us to discover that UK Secretary of State for Energy Security & Net Zero, Ed Milliband, is mentioned by many other stakeholders but not highly engaged. We see that Politico’s Climate Congress reporter, Joshua Siegel, is mentioned by many other journalists, while the deepest engagement – at the centre of the conversation network – takes place among energy experts, with nuclear experts among the most-engaged with each other.

Energy Digital Opinion Leaders

This academic or scientific community has formed a virtual network within the wider online conversation. They are not the loudest voices, but they make a significant impact. Among these, we see the emergence of experts who may be considered as “Digital Opinion Leaders”, or DOLs.

 

Take Nick Touran, for example, a nuclear engineer in Washington D.C., USA. He posts almost daily about energy, but his online impact is not simply about the volume of his content. Our peer-impact analysis indicates that he is highly trusted by the rest of the nuclear expert stakeholder group, and he actively engages nuclear and energy sector investors and entrepreneurs online.

Engaging with industry

Among the energy conversation network, we also see some industry names, with Shell and Octopus Energy taking their place among companies being mentioned by the sector’s stakeholders. The nature of these two companies’ relationship with stakeholder groups is quite different, and so is their online behaviour.

While Shell posts corporate information updates on developments in its energy provision, such as a post on surges in demand for energy coming from AI technologies, some stakeholders play a role in amplifying their message.

Joseph Majkut, for example, Director of Energy Security and Climate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), amplified Shell’s content to other energy experts, who in turn shared his post further among their networks.

Meanwhile, Octopus Energy shared video content with a post about energy pricing that was designed to engage, drawing discussion from numerous responders. In the video, Octopus Energy CEO and Founder, Greg Jackson, appears in down-to-earth, accessible style. 

The post sparked considerable discussion, which Octopus engaged with again, posting other media resources to support its responses. In this way, the company leveraged the voice of stakeholders, amplifying its own content through the online conversation.

How to activate Digital Opinion Leaders in the energy sector

Digital Opinion Leaders are those who other stakeholders trust and engage online. They play a key part in shaping the conversation between stakeholder groups. Even if the DOLs themselves are not directly shaping policies and practices, their impact on the online conversation can eventually shape the behaviours of those who do.

We’ve seen this in other scientific, regulated sectors, where conversations between scientists such as healthcare professionals (HCPs) is seen to align with future approvals or funding decisions.

So what can leaders in the energy sector do, to engage effectively with Digital Opinion Leaders? It all starts with effective listening. 

Services like CREATION.co’s energy digital stakeholder mapping provide intelligence on who is shaping views about a particular issue, what themes they are interested in and what they really care about. With this understanding, energy leaders can empathise more effectively with stakeholders, develop messaging and engagement tactics that connect, and start to move the conversation.

When one company worked with us and discovered that scientists in their field did not fully understand the value of the company’s latest scientific data, it used what we learned to reframe their message and train their teams to have more effective conversations. It reached out and started conversations with a small group of Digital Opinion Leaders, which shifted the online scientific narrative. Then, by continuing to listen, the company was able to launch its new products with stronger support from the online scientific community.

If you’d like to learn more about how online stakeholders are impacting the energy industry, watch our webinar: Who is really shaping the energy industry?

Or if you’d like to talk more specifically about your stakeholder engagement, please do get in touch today. 

 

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Meet the Author

Daniel Ghinn

Daniel has been at the helm throughout the company’s life since 1998. His rich expertise in working with pharmaceutical businesses has enabled CREATION to build business solutions that fit our clients’ needs.

Daniel is married to Jo, has three children, a cat, a dog, 28 fish, and 160,000 bees.