Good strategy, Tor. I'm in.

Tor Valenza aka “Solar Fred” is a partner with residential solar referral site www.SolarPowerRocks.com. He also consults about how to effectively reach solar customers through innovative messaging, branding, and social media communications. Follow him on Twitter @solarfred. Contact: solarfred@solarpowerrocks.com for solar branding and communications consulting.

April E. Clark is Marketing Communications Coordinator for Solar Energy International (SEI), a nonprofit renewable energy training organization based in Carbondale/Paonia, Colo. She is a trained journalist, weekly newspaper columnist and ad libitum stand-up comic skilled in interviewing, editing, feature writing, graphic arts, multimedia production, web design, and social networking. The Society of Professional Journalists and Colorado Mountain News Media have recognized April for her writing and graphic arts achievements. Originally from Indiana, April is a Purdue University and Poynter Institute for Media Studies alumna who shares the SEI vision of achieving a more sustainable world for future generations.

Excellent call-to-action Fred. My personal crusade is countermanding the "Earth4Energy" people who impersonate solar informers on the web, fooling people like you and me left and right unless you dig in and block 'em. Build your own solar panel? Yeah, right. But being proactive on comment sections is another solemn duty we should all perform, thanks for pointing it out.

Fred, You crack me up with your nonstop marketing mind. But I love your idea, I just ordered 20 "Go Solar" buttons and will wear them everywhere I go, not unlike an obsessive/compulsive campaign worker.

Dr. Rande Treece is the CEO of Astralux Power Systems, where I work. Rande is a successful solar researcher (with the solar patents and research grants to prove it)m who has entrepreneurially launched a spin-off company into a top Colorado integrator, with a 10% market share. He maintains the same high quality integrity with PV installations as he does while doing research on behalf of NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Navy, CU and others.

Excellent topic and much needed commentary. The solar integration business has grown beyond its engineering roots, but lacks the marketing DNA to communicate its benefits. People like you are calling this out. That's why I'm such a big fan of Solar Fred. I was talking about this same topic recently with one of the editors at 'Solar Today', and he totally concurred. Keep up the consisently good work.

Another right-on! cache of info, SolarFred. One additional point: While Twitter Ho's may be OK, it's not OK if they're solar scammers. These people re-tweet legit solar info, but guide you back to their "earth 4 energy" scam. We industry folks should be diligent about actively "blocking" these kinds of followers. Blocking is a Twitter option to get scammers off your back 100%. More info at http://www.kenoatman.com

Similar to my fellow advocate SolarFred, I'm on Twitter principally to help popularize how accessible solar is to get on your roof these days. Follow me at http://www.twitter.com/kenoatman if you want to hear what info I'm gathering that help installers or future solar consumers better understand and explain residential and commercial photovoltaics. The company I work for Astralux Power Systems, also has a Twitter handle at http://www.twitter.com/astralux, more focused on Colorado solar electric matters. Thanks REWorld, keep up the good work.

Good head check on integrity and excellence, thank you. Should mention good ol' 'Google Alerts'—you can get an email sent out when the Google bots find a keyword (i.e. your company name or even your own name) or search phrase of your choosing: http://www.google.com/alerts There's some commercial-grade services, like http://filtrbox.com that perform similar functions.

Your general line-of-thought is that solar companies need an injection of marketing savvy is very true. Fortunately, the Colorado solar integrator I work for is on the right path, here's our blog URL, thank you for the linkback juice amigo: http://aessolarenergy.com/blog

I'm just now getting involved with my company's (Astralux) marketing, so I'll be making contributions to their blog soon. Good to have your guidelines and encouragement: http://aessolarenergy.com/blog BTW, we're quoting $5.85 per watt in Colorado ...I've even seen some commercial quotes where the client is GETTING PAID to install solar electric, because of accelerated depreciation.

Thank you for hosting Solar Fred, he's exactly the voice the industry needs to move from Early Adopters to Early Majority. He breaks down a high concept sell into simple consumer language. Getting the word out like this, and promoting the Solar Freds is highly commendable!