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Government Agencies Get Real, Funny, and Human on Social Media [Examples]

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Government Agencies Get Real, Funny, and Human on Social Media [Examples]

Developing government agency content (or any “boring” or “red-tape” industry) to engage, entertain, and still communicate your message presents challenges.

Bland, bureaucratic content causes people to keep scrolling or have their eyes glazed over. Fortunately, some local, state, and federal agencies have found an antidote, creatively connecting with their constituents by humanizing their content.

Bland, bureaucratic #content causes people’s eyes to glaze over. But these three agencies have found a creative antidote, says @DawnPapandrea via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Look at three public agencies that keep their content fresh and entertaining while sharing important public service updates.

Local Agency: Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District

A public utility with a cult-like social media following might sound crazy, but the Northeast Ohio Sewer District is proof. The agency treats 90 billion gallons of wastewater and stormwater from 62 communities – and tweets like a content boss.

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A recent thread put images of actor Pedro Pascal alongside a corresponding image of an NEORSD job and garnered over 56,000 views. Other tweets bring potty puns (flushable wipes – that are the bain of a sewer treatment organization – are a favorite target), pop culture, and cool employee profiles to build rapport with audiences.

That creativity and willingness to engage outside the normal utility content bring a human side that allows the district to connect uniquely with customers and others across the country, says John Gonzalez, communications manager for Northeast Ohio Sewer District.

NEORSD is active on other social platforms, and its podcast Clean Water Works, which started in September 2022, is gaining traction.

John credits employees within the organization for sharing creative content ideas. “The number of employees who have content to share – whether it is photos from the field or suggestions for content or a space where we can record a video and bring them into it – that support goes a long way. And it comes from the relationships that we’ve built internally,” he says. “Most of our (audience) growth in the recent years was because we began to move into more of the personal reality side of our work.”

John and his team also work to be in the moment, be responsive, and go where the trends lead them. “We like to create content that will make people think. We want them to pay attention to our work and be able to trust us to know when they have a question. We’re going to give them an answer,” he says.

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A sense of humor, humility, and humanity works well on any platform. As John explains: “I’ve had people say that they have applied for jobs at the district because of something they saw on our Twitter account … It reflected something about the organization that they wanted to be a part of. When I hear those things, it [shows] that those human connections go a long way. And you can’t put that into a tweet metric.”

Cool content moment

On Dec. 29, 2021, NEORSD tweeted a phone number inviting followers to call and receive a personal message from the sewer district and to leave their own messages. About 900 responded.

Over 900 people left voicemail messages when @NEORSD asked them to call to receive a personal message, says @DawnPapandrea via John Gonzalez @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

“It was humbling to realize that there was a real connection we had made with people just by being honest, by thanking them for giving us their time. The sense of personal connection that they felt with our account and the emotion – there were literally people crying in the voicemail messages – just shocked me,” John says.

State agency: California Volunteers, Office of the Governor

California Volunteers aims to engage state residents and encourage them to participate in service opportunities. Communications director Katie Vavao says social media content drives brand awareness, helping them to increase their volunteer force that’s already larger than the Peace Corps.

“Seeing different faces, speaking different languages, doing a variety of community work is what makes our stories so compelling,” Katie says. “By uplifting their stories, we hope to inspire others.”

California Volunteers’ best-performing content is typically short-form videos like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, such as this California Climate Action Corps recruitment video.

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Recently, the organization found new audiences on LinkedIn and TikTok. “It can sometimes be a challenge to break through and get those viral moments, but posting fun, visual content has been key,” Katie says.

With just one videographer and two social media staff, they rely on user-generated content. “We receive photos/videos from volunteers and service members uploaded through our website. Our hope is to have thousands of content creators working all over the state to share their stories about service and volunteerism,” Katie says.

@CalVolunteers relies on its volunteers and service members to create user-generated content to use across its social channels, says @DawnPapandrea via @katievavao @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

They use the hashtag #CaliforniansForAll across platforms to allow for consistency wherever people engage.

Cool content moment

A simple TikTok promoting the College Corps fellows program, which provides a college stipend for students doing meaningful work, garnered over 333,000 views. It’s a 46-second walkthrough of the application process, but with the right target audience (TikTok), it had a big impact.

@californiavolunteers Build Skills Help Others Earn Money If you need help paying for your education while doing meaningful work, the #CaliforniansForAll ♬ Aesthetic – Tollan Kim

Federal: National Weather Service safety team

“A good metaphor for our challenge in garnering the public’s attention is this: Weather safety and preparedness are like broccoli. People know it’s good for you, but they don’t want to eat it. It is our job to make weather safety and preparedness appetizing,” says Douglas Hilderbrand, preparedness and resilience program lead at the National Weather Service.

The seven-person NWS safety team shares national safety and awareness materials to save lives and property. It’s all about connecting a weather forecast to an expected impact and capturing how weather impacts everyone every day.

“Because our mission is tied to the human element, it is important that our social media outreach reflects that,” Douglas says. “Success is most tied to connecting with our audience, driving action (whether that be preparedness, learning, or interest in partnerships), and building trust.”

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@NWS success is most tied to connecting with our audience, driving action, and building trust, says @dcweatherbrand via @DawnPapandrea @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

The NWS safety team does that with sprinkles of humor, irony, and fun, so their audience appreciates the important underlying messages. “If more people follow us because they get entertained once in a while, they will view our posts when the topic is much more serious,” Douglas says.

Because their content’s impact can save lives, clearly communicating the message in a way people will appreciate is crucial. They partnered with the Federal Emergency Management Association, Auburn University, Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, and others to create this infographic for tornado warnings. It divides the options for where people shelter into boxes labeled worst, bad, good, and best. The list ranges from mobile homes and vehicles (worst) to gymnasiums (bad) and basements (good) to tornado storm shelters (best).

Douglas says it has become the “gold standard for communicating tornado sheltering” on social media and traditional media.

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Government Agencies Get Real Funny and Human on Social Media

Cool content moment

In April, NWS created #SafePlaceSelfie Day. It encouraged the public to take a photo of themselves in a spot where they would be safe during an extreme weather event. Meteorologists, local weather bureaus, colleges, and interested people participated.

“By making one preparedness action fun, we hope it motivates people to take other preparedness steps,” Douglas says.

Translating messages into content people will consume

Content teams at government agencies must often work a little harder than B2C brands to get buy-in from their bosses to publish content that real people will consume. But those who get the OK (and you can use the anecdotes to help your case) will find human-focused content can deliver better results.

Want more content marketing tips, insights, and examples? Subscribe to workday or weekly emails from CMI.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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MARKETING

Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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More promotions and more layoffs

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More promotions and more layoffs

For martech professionals salaries are good and promotions are coming faster, unfortunately, layoffs are coming faster, too. That’s according to the just-released 2024 Martech Salary and Career Survey. Another very unfortunate finding: The median salary of women below the C-suite level is 35% less than what men earn.

The last year saw many different economic trends, some at odds with each other. Although unemployment remained very low overall and the economy grew, some businesses — especially those in technology and media — cut both jobs and spending. Reasons cited for the cuts include during the early years of the pandemic, higher interest rates and corporate greed.

Dig deeper: How to overcome marketing budget cuts and hiring freezes

Be that as it may, for the employed it remains a good time to be a martech professional. Salaries remain lucrative compared to many other professions, with an overall median salary of $128,643. 

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Here are the median salaries by role:

  • Senior management $199,653
  • Director $157,776
  • Manager $99,510
  • Staff $89,126

Senior managers make more than twice what staff make. Directors and up had a $163,395 median salary compared to manager/staff roles, where the median was $94,818.

One-third of those surveyed said they were promoted in the last 12 months, a finding that was nearly equal among director+ (32%) and managers and staff (30%). 

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Extend the time frame to two years, and nearly three-quarters of director+ respondents say they received a promotion, while the same can be said for two-thirds of manager and staff respondents.

Dig deeper: Skills-based hiring for modern marketing teams

Employee turnover 

In 2023, we asked survey respondents if they noticed an increase in employee churn and whether they would classify that churn as a “moderate” or “significant” increase. For 2024, given the attention on cost reductions and layoffs, we asked if the churn they witnessed was “voluntary” (e.g., people leaving for another role) or “involuntary” (e.g., a layoff or dismissal). More than half of the marketing technology professionals said churn increased in the last year. Nearly one-third classified most of the churn as “involuntary.”

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Men and Women

Screenshot 2024 03 21 124540Screenshot 2024 03 21 124540

This year, instead of using average salary figures, we used the median figures to lessen the impact of outliers in the salary data. As a result, the gap between salaries for men and women is even more glaring than it was previously.

In last year’s report, men earned an average of 24% more than women. This year the median salary of men is 35% more than the median salary of women. That is until you get to the upper echelons. Women at director and up earned 5% more than men.

Methodology

The 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey is a joint project of MarTech.org and chiefmartec.com. We surveyed 305 marketers between December 2023 and February 2024; 297 of those provided salary information. Nearly 63% (191) of respondents live in North America; 16% (50) live in Western Europe. The conclusions in this report are limited to responses from those individuals only. Other regions were excluded due to the limited number of respondents. 

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Download your copy of the 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey here. No registration is required.

Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.

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