Bus and rail service changes are part and parcel for most transit agencies. As Los Angeles Metro recovers from the impacts of the global pandemic while also building out the fastest-growing rail network in the nation, we have had a lot of service-change announcements, both of service-frequency increases (welcome news) and decreases (unwelcome), route changes due to station openings, status updates on ongoing construction projects.
Public information like this is tricky to share on social media; a standard flier with the information spelled out most likely will not gain traction and thus will not be seen, even by followers.
Underlying the goal of getting the word out is also building community support for more transit projects in our region -- so not only do we need to create memorable content, it needs to leave viewers with a positive impression of Metro.
Thus, we have aimed to create innovative, interesting content for every service-change announcement we've made, through original video, utilizing humorous memes or inserting these announcements into current pop-culture trends.
While transit service change announcements and project updates may be welcome news to some riders, the changes may also be bad news for others and of little interest to still others. Talking about federal grants might be boring, but less so when it's set to "Match My Freak."
For each of the announcements, we considered the specific riders affected and created bespoke content that would give audiences a reason to pause and watch the video, scroll through the carousel, read the caption, etc.
By leveraging original video, explainer graphics, memes and familiar cultural trends, we successfully got the word out to our riders and, in some cases, well beyond our ridership and even our local service area.
For geo-specific service announcements, such as rail realignments, we leveraged paid social in order to add reach in those specific locations.
Among transit agencies in the country, we are at the forefront of innovating communication strategies for the modern era. The days of treating social media platforms as community bulletin boards is over. The days of reposting the same content across platforms is gone – it's time to create custom, platform-specific content to break through the noise and reach far larger audiences than many other tactics, including ad spend, do.
Not only has this social-first approach to sharing out public information generated plenty of attention and positive sentiment, it allows us to break through the noise of social and land the message in front of those we are trying to reach. People follow Metro on social because they want to know about the additional transit options we're bringing to the region, but if deliver the messages in a boring way, they'll be dead in the algorithmic water.
It also gives us the opportunity to forego typical government jargon and frame messages in a way that our audience can relate to.
Among our top performing public-information posts this year are the "Tunneling Complete!" video, depicting a Pacman-esque yellow chomper eating through miles of dirt to illustrate that the many miles of tunneling on a highly anticipated subway project has been completed, which earned over 2M views across platforms; our video of the install of a 30' tall "monument sign" at our soon-to-open light-rail station serving the LAX airport set to the dramatic soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey (over 700k impressions on Instagram); videos celebrating the opening of new dedicated bus and bike lanes; and ASMR train/bus cleaning videos (over 500k impressions each on Instagram).
