Quite a lot, when it comes to changing the conversation about your reputation, using the resources you have at your disposal and approaching everything with a sense of fun How did you get your start with Instagram? People liked all the photographs. I thought a lot of our content is quirky and that it would go over well on Instagram and it would give us a way to educate and inform as well as entertain our followers. What other platforms do you use and what percentage of the time do you spend on them vs. Instagram We post a variety of things from some prohibited items that we discover in people's bags to travel tips. It takes a lot more time to get that prepared than it does an Instagram post, but a lot of my content for Instagram comes from the preparation of the blog. The way we get the content is, we don't have officers in the field with cameras taking pictures and uploading them -- that would be a nightmare. It could take two or three hours to go through it all and sometimes the picture is not attached to the report, so I've got to reach out to the TSA office at the airport and see if there were photographs. A lot of people, until they started following us, had no idea that we were finding on average 70 firearms a week. I would definitely say, first off just because somebody has a successful Instagram account doesn't mean that everyone should have one. And more importantly, you have to have the person or people that are running it, you can't just grab somebody and say, "Hey, this is your job now."
Between the stress and the boredom, there is nothing quite so stultifying as waiting on line at the airport.
So how do you account for the fact that the Transportation Security Administration’s Instagram account has 800,000 followers and counting? Not only that, but Rolling Stone ranked it fourth on its list of 100 Instagram accounts to follow — coming in between Rihanna and Beyonce.
Bob Burns, the lead social media specialist for TSA Public Affairs and mastermind behind the account, attributes the agency’s social media success to a combination of outlandish photos of confiscated items, useful travel tips and introductions to the adorable four-legged members of the K9 units.
It also reminds travelers that the TSA is staffed by public servants with a sense of humor — who are doing their best to keep people safe. “It shows people that we are human,” Burns tells Entrepreneur. “We’re not just the federal employees in the bowels of some dark government building. We’re real people.”
So what can entrepreneurs learn from the success of a government agency on social media? Quite a lot, when it comes to changing the conversation about your reputation, using the resources you have at your disposal and approaching everything with a sense of fun
How did you get your start with Instagram?
We started the blog in 2008. Then around 2011 we started posting a week-in-review post. In that post we do a rundown of the different items our officers have discovered at checkpoints across the nation. That turned out to be pretty popular with people. People liked all the photographs.
I was using Instagram personally in 2012. I thought that it would be great for TSA to have an Instagram account where we could share the same images we’re sharing on the blog. Same idea, different demographics and we’d be putting the focus on one image instead of a whole post full of images. In 2013, I simply asked my boss if we could launch an Instagram account. I put up a few posts and it just took off from there.
I thought a lot of our content is quirky and that it would go over well on Instagram and it would give us a way to educate and inform as well as entertain our followers. I know we’re not in the entertainment business but that’s one of the ways we get people to read our content. Otherwise aviation security is pretty dry. Nighttime reading if you want to catch some zzz’s. To be able to add some human flavor to it really takes it a long way.
What other platforms do you use and what percentage of the time do you spend on them vs. Instagram
We post a variety of things from some prohibited items that we discover in people’s bags to travel tips. We actually advertise for our customer care program, which is Ask TSA. So people figured out to just send the photograph without even asking the question. We could just say, “Yes, this can fly,” or “No, it can’t.”
Well some of these photographs have been pretty interesting. So if it’s an interesting one that I think can generate some discussion, I’ll do a screenshot and I’ll answer the question. Usually in humorous fashion and then I’ll post it on Instagram at the same time. It varies based on the content we have on whatever strategic calendar for that week or month. The week-in-review blog post takes most of my time.
It takes a lot more time to get that prepared than it does an Instagram post, but a lot of my content for Instagram comes from the preparation of the blog. That’s where I end up…
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