Social media can provide valuable insight and engagement … we’ve all heard that already.
We’re beyond having to justify social media as a place for more than cat videos and random pictures of people’s kids or grandkids. But while people seem to understand it is important, there are still so many things that contradict that.
Stop focusing on how many people like you or are following you. According to CNN, there are 83 million fake Facebook profiles. Not that it means they’re all run by robots, they could be secondary accounts created by people for a variety of reasons. Speaking from my own experience, my dog “has” a Twitter account so I can say what I’m really thinking. Of the thousands of Samoyed accounts, his is probably the one that speaks the most to transportation issues, as opposed to the challenges of chasing balls and catching squirrels …
It feels like it’s been stressed enough that it’s not how many people as it is to the right people, but time and again I hear people talking about the number of followers or asking about the number of followers. Irrelevant. The number of lost followers or gained followers in a month, yes, that is relevant. But overall; stop asking.
Look at Taylor Huckaby whose Twitter account @irwriterealgood currently has 3,424 followers. I imagine a month ago it wasn’t quite near that number. But after tweeting a firestorm for Bay Area Rapid Transit during system-wide delays one night in March, he has garnered national attention for his direct response: “@shakatron BART was built to transport far fewer people, and much of our system has reached the end of its useful life. This is our reality.”
I, along with a barrage of national media outlets, wrote about the exchange he had with riders. Not your usual, “So sorry, we apologize,” he shared the info we all know, but often don’t talk about.
If you haven’t already read about this exchange, you can view stories at MassTransitmag.com/12183917
One of our latest online features talks about how Instagram can be used for more than sharing gorgeous photos of your trains and buses. If you were at the American Public Transportation Association Rail Conference in Salt Lake City in2015, you may have seen Scott Wilkinson of AlphaVu speak about how influencers on Twitter can help you effectively spread your message exponentially. Most recently he wrote about how Instagram can be used to find out what people not engaging you, are saying about you. Not only understanding what people really think of your system, he provides information on how the geospatial capabilities of Instagram allow for a variety of potential partnerships with businesses near your stops and stations. MassTransitmag.comm/12190338
It takes a lot of resources to keep up, but using social media to its truly full advantage can have a dramatic impact.
