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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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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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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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