New ways to communicate: voestalpine took part in worldsteel's first Twitter debate

On January 18, 2013, an open discussion on "Steel: The Next Hero – Looking to the Future" was held on the Twitter social media platform. The kickoff was the launch of the "The white book of steel", a publication that celebrates the history of steel and the steel industry.

The objective of these activities was not simply to take a look at the history of steel, but also to demonstrate how important steel is for future innovations. Which is why industry leaders, including Wolfgang Eder (voestalpine CEO) and Peter Schwab (Head of R&D at voestalpine), twittered about careers, development opportunities and innovations in the steel industry for a whole hour
under #steeldebate on Twitter.com.

The target groups of the innovative online debate were talented young individuals interested in a career in the steel industry and members of the general public who wanted to take advantage of this unique opportunity to communicate with global decision-makers. All Twitter users could pose questions and join the discussion.

Within an hour, 795 tweets were received from 159 participants in seven different countries, and they were answered by Wolfgang Eder (CEO, voestalpine), Peter Schwab (Head of R&D, voestalpine), Alexey Mordashov (General Director, Severstal JSC and Chairman of the World Steel Association), Harry Bhadeshia (Cambridge University), Richard Thackray (Tata Steel Lecturer in Steelmaking, University of Sheffield and Chair of IOM3 Iron and Steel Society), Roger Manser (Journalist and founder of Steel Business Briefing), Jim Woods (Senior Director, Communications, Steel Recycling Institute), Edwin Basson (Director General, worldsteel) and other steel professionals.

worldsteel represents approximately 170 steel producers (including 17 of the world's 20 largest steel companies), national and regional steel industry associations, and steel research institutes. worldsteel members represent around 85% of world steel production. The European counterpart to worldsteel is the Brussels-based EUROFER. voestalpine CEO Wolfgang Eder is President of this institution, which represents all of European steel production.

Twitter is a social media service from the USA that allows users to quickly communicate by sending out 140-character messages, called "tweets". Most tweets reference further information sources. Twittering is the online social media world's equivalent to texting.