Objectives

Alright so you’ve removed your laptop and gently placed it in a bin with nothing on top and nothing underneath.

You’ve emptied out your pockets.

Removed your belt.

Wait what about your cellphone…don’t need to…got it.

You take off your shoes…whoops socks don’t match.

Oh yeah…and don’t forget about your travel liquids.

Go through security…whoops why did I alarm?

I knew I should have gotten TSA Precheck!

Sound familiar? Well it should especially if you are one of approximately 2 million travelers each day!

Who knew the Government could be so funny? We highlight off the wall and cleverly concealed items discovered at our checkpoints and airports around the nation. We create a witty and punny approach to informing travelers on the do’s and don’ts of TSA’s policy, procedures, and protocols. Sounds boring?

We invite you all to check it out for yourself. Trust us when we say, some of the items discovered will have you saying “They Brought What!?!”

TSA is a Federal government leader in the use of social media. The government has not historically been known for innovation in technology and communications, until now. TSA has broken the mold and paved a new way on how the government communicates with the public. We take a tone that is personal, a little nerdy, and very pun-ny!

Strategy and Execution

There are two strategies that are cornerstones of our content: educating with humor and customer engagement. We aim to meet our audience where they are. Whether that means doing the Dolly Parton Challenge or sharing information on traveling as an LGBTQ passenger, all of our accounts aim to humanize our officers and their jobs at the checkpoints.

During the past year, we developed multiple strategies to expand our reach and success across multiple social media accounts and platforms:

• Humor
  • Why did the librarian get kicked off the plane? It was overbooked! Now that we have your attention, we can talk about our strategy using humor. Humor allows us to take somewhat dry topic areas, and make the content engaging and impactful.  We strive to stay relevant and try to stick to a tone that really resonates with our customers. We may not take ourselves very seriously, but our customers know we’re on hand to provide them the facts they are looking for!
• K9s
  • TSA explosive detection K9s are an invaluable asset to the agency. In 2019 we drew on past success and gave special mention to our paws-itively cuddly employees.  Our favorite story is from the first ever TSA Cutest K9 Contest. By using Instagram stories, we invited the public to vote on who they thought was the cutest K9 at TSA.  You woof n’t believe the amount of engagement we received from our customers! It was a fun and engaging way to help inform our customers on the importance of K9s to airport security.
• Travel Tip Videos
  • We understand that the key to effective social media is to draw attention and get to the point in 60 seconds or less. We’ve produced short but informative videos with travel tips and tricks in an innovative, creative, and educational way. This strategy appeals directly to the traveling public, especially younger travelers.  These videos are quite popular and we are getting requests from travelers for more of these videos!
  • We’ve also created a video series entitled TSA Cares, which provide guidance on what to expect while traveling with a disability or special circumstance.
  • Ever wonder what TSA’s Instagram account would be like if it were a show? We created a series entitled, “They Brought What!?!”  that highlights the off the wall items passengers attempt to go through security with. As entertaining as it sounds, we also make sure to include proper travel guidance.
• IG Stories
  • We host “Ask Me Anything” on Instagram Stories weekly, allowing our customers to come directly to us with their questions and concerns. By providing guidance and engaging with our customers, they we’ve create a space where our customers know where to come for the best advice.

Results

In 2019, we reached, and have exceeded, one of our first major milestones: 1 million followers on Instagram. This accomplishment was linked to many of our strategies to increase awareness and share a range of helpful content by using humor and engaging with our customers. Across all of our platforms, we engage with 1.3 million people, and with an average 2 million travelers daily, we are reaching travelers across the country and even the world.

Our work over the past year has resulted in a deeper understanding and acceptance by the public of TSA’s role in transportation security and our policy and procedures. Through our transparency and engagement with our customers, we have seen an increase in acceptance of new and existing policies and recognition of the challenges of providing security that our officers perform daily. Our social media content has been shared over 100k times demonstrating a willingness of our audience to become educators as well as consumers of our content.  

All of this work prepares our audience for an easier and smoother security screening process.

Media