“Public transit social media is really good.” Thank you for including us in this list alongside some heavy hitters, Rachel Karten! 🚍🚊🚇✨
This past year I noticed something: public transit social media is really good. There's Los Angeles Metro on Instagram, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) on TikTok, and Metropolitan Transportation Authority's latest campaign has some of the biggest influencers posting about them. I asked Whitney Delbridge Nichels, VP of Comms and Head of Social at WMATA, what about working in transportation makes for such engaging accounts. She told me: "Transportation is universal. It’s used by people from all walks of life, so it’s easy to make content that is relatable to a broad audience. I also think people just enjoy seeing content they wouldn’t expect from a government or government-adjacent account. We often get comments like 'is this really the official Metro page?'. That’s exactly the reaction we want because it drives curiosity and makes people pay attention to the underlying message. That is the goal." Thanks to WMATA's more fun and personable strategy, which they implemented in June of this year, they've seen a 347% increase in Instagram engagement.