Starting a social media presence from scratch in this digital era can be a necessary but daunting project. The key to deciding if social media is the right move for your brand is to look at where your audience is online. However, with about 4.7 billion people using social media worldwide in 2022, the chances of it being a good fit for your audience are high. In this blog, we reflect on our work with the Fresno County Public Works Department (FCPW). Once they determined that social media would be the best way to deliver useful information about county roads and resources to residents, we got to work. Our team successfully created and implemented a social media strategy for FCPW from the ground up.
The Creation
If you did not know, FCPW does a lot of important things for Fresno County, including coordinating road closures for road improvement, educating residents on how to dispose of household hazardous waste to keep our community clean, and much more. Therefore, the goal of FCPW socials was primarily to spread awareness. We started by assessing which platforms would be best for promoting messages like these and landed on: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Looking at research and data on Fresno County residents, we knew that the audience that would engage with these pages first would be in the 35-54-year-old range. This analysis led us to the conclusion that Facebook would be a good starting point. From there, we thought about our objectives. One of our goals was to reach younger people and get them engaged with the pages as well. That is the rationale that fueled our decision to bring FCPW to Instagram. Finally, through social listening, we saw how active the Fresno County community was on Twitter. We felt it was important as a government agency directly serving the public to contribute to those vital conversations. Once we established our social page trifecta, it was time to get creative.
The Process
Our creative team got to work creating dynamic social posts that would educate and inform Fresno County residents about the many things the public works department does and what residents can do to contribute. We knew from the start we wanted to construct a powerful social strategy that included both organic and paid social media to reach as many residents as possible. From there, our organic team produced monthly social calendars to supplement timely information and pertinent facts about FCPW. Meanwhile, the media team created several creative campaigns that focused on general awareness and education. All in all, this tandem effort created winning results.
The Results
Using this social strategy, we were able to grow all of the FCPW social pages from zero to 2,300 followers on Facebook, 1,249 followers on Instagram, and 176 followers on Twitter over a two-year period. Additionally, we made over 500 pieces of creative that lived on their social pages through organic and paid means, driving engagement and impressions in the millions on all platforms. With this all being said, we use FCPW as the lesson that it is never too late to start something new because you never know what wins you will produce.
—
Skylar Karle, Account Coordinator
