Advertising campaigns, especially in the public sector, often involve concepts and messages the average person already knows. For most of us, messaging campaigns aren’t to teach people something new; it’s to get them to adopt a behavior or practice they already know they should.

In this session, we’ll go through two social media campaigns, one about wildfire prevention and the other about suicide prevention, where people didn’t just consume—they acted. From rapping TikTok stars to hijacking Instagram environments, this session will inspire and change how you use social media in your public awareness campaigns.

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This panel will discuss:

• Examples of content that (surprisingly) performed well, and lessons learned from it
• Examples of content panelists thought would perform well that didn’t, and lessons learned from it
• The types of content that work best per platform
• How to leverage data from high-performing posts to inform future content
• How to bounce back from a content flop 
• Strategies to help generate engaging content as a one-person social team
• How the constant algorithm changes have impacted content performance on social media channels

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The social media landscape can be a scary place, especially for public agencies. Intimidating, emotional, and time-consuming — but ignoring social media comes with its own risks, costs, and calculations. How do you assess these realities with your executive teams and gain support for your social media comms efforts?

In this session, you’ll learn how a sewer and stormwater utility first gained leadership support for its social media endeavors as early as 2010, and what efforts have kept them—and tens of thousands of social followers—engaged ever since.

You’ll learn:

• How to read your managers’ minds (lol is this really possible)
• How to build trust outside your comms team
• Must-ask questions when considering your social media resources

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Have you ever wanted to make a funny post but were unsure if your audience would be receptive? Have you ever been motivated to take an account in a new direction, only to be met by reluctant leadership? Forget diamonds -- data is a social media manager’s best friend, and it’s the foundation on which you build a successful account.

In this session, you’ll learn how the Washington State Department of Natural Resources has leveraged audits, analytics, and insights to drive record-high reach, followers, and landing page visits. This session highlights content examples (the good, the bad, the ugly) and how qualitative and quantitative data informed WADNR’s social media strategy while providing actionable takeaways to help you feel confident in how turning insights into action.

You’ll learn:

• How to look beyond vanity metrics and listen to the stories your data is telling you.
• Tips on turning insights into action.
• How to leverage data to win over reluctant leadership.

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With the global COVID-19 pandemic, social media has opened new doors to creating connection and education. Information is available at your fingertips, making health education catch up to the age of social media communication.

In this session, you will learn how local public health has become innovative in integrating behavior change into social media platforms. Using visuals like videos and infographics to weekly polls, the City of Greenfield Health Department has turned health education into relatable, interactive content for our community and surrounding communities. This session will share lessons from our social media team over the past two years while providing real-world examples of how others can use behavior change to create relatable content for their community on various social media platforms.

You will learn:

• The basic principles of the behavioral change model and its relevance to social media
• Ways that real-world examples can be adapted to meet your audience where they are and create relatable, actionable content
• Tips for how to use social media metrics to identify, implement, and evaluate health messaging

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There’s plenty of good advice on what works on social media. Sadly the answer usually ends up being the same — you need a budget to pay for influencers, advertising, and content production. Easier said than done for Government organizations where budgets are stretched, approvals for spending can take time, and there’s often little cultural understanding or support for paid social media. Are you feeling stressed already? Relax — Adam has some helpful, practical tips to take away and try that won’t cost you money. They’ll help your team and organization succeed on social media with little or no budget. 

You’ll learn:

• How to work with influencers without having to pay
• How to produce content freely and easily
• Using small budgets as effectively as possible

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Government social media accounts use various strategies and tactics to engage with their communities, especially during crises. Public Information Officers (PIO) must reach those in an ever-changing and misinformation-filled social media environment in unique and impactful ways. In this session, you will learn how to communicate in a friendly, human tone and consistently generate relevant, fresh, and compelling content alongside photos, gifs, and videos tailored to your audience. 

You’ll learn:

• Transparency, timeliness, and humanity are key
• Best practices to increase positive perception of the agency amongst residents, news media, and elected officials
• Always “exchange business cards” before an emergency

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As marketers, it's our job to understand the inner workings of social media platforms to optimize and package our social media content across channels, but staying on top of platform and algorithm changes can feel like a full-time job.

This session will cover how to look at your data and top-performing content to spot trends and help your posts rise to the top of the news feed.

In this session, you'll learn:

• The breakdown of algorithms per social platform

• Why algorithms matter and keeping up to date with them

• Best practices for creating a stand-out content strategy

• Learn how to track your content performance for success

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The influencer program for the Port of Seattle had very humble beginnings. It started with the celebratory opening and ribbon cutting of two new retail tenants at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA), with a modest handful of bloggers in attendance. Several years later, SEA has hosted multiple successful influencer events, including an airport lounge crawl, holiday shopping previews, and an avgeek planespotting event, and built and developed important relationships with our influencer community. In 2022, the Port completed a yearlong blog ambassador pilot program, partnering with a local influencer.

Working with influencers doesn’t have to be intimidating and full of dollar signs!

Attend this session to learn:

• How to manage an influencer program on a small budget
• Tips for building relationships with local influencers
• Best practices for hosting influencer events

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