Washington State Ferries (WSF) Twitter TransComm 2016 Skills Competition Charleston, WV Lars Erickson Communications Director Washington State Department of Transportation

Social across the Sound

Goals • Be transparent: Be the first to break the news. Share

critical, real-time information about our ferry service. • Celebrate our image and brand: Highlight what makes

the ferry system unique and celebrate crew members, communities and riders who make #ferry life so special.

• Be responsive: Be available to help, advise, validate,

and communicate in a timely manner with customers. • Connect with people: Retweet, engage with customers,

work with media.

Audiences Washington State Ferries served 24 million passengers in 2015 and has: • 10 routes • 20 terminals • 22 vessels Just look at the map – the system we serve is as diverse as our Twitter audience. We have: • Ferry commuters • Island communities dependent on the ferries • Commercial users connecting to markets on

both sides of Puget Sound • Tourists • Washingtonians • Media

… All of whom we reach via Twitter!

• Total followers: 15,000 • Grown the account by

10,000 followers in 1.5 years; 480 followers gained per month

• Average of 45,000 impressions per day

• Top tweet garnered 97,000 impressions due to retweets from Seattle Seahawks and fans

Creating a Ferry Frenzy By the numbers

Our “ferry” godmother reminds travelers of the tricky sailing schedule on New Year’s Eve.

• Image and brand. We want to foster positive conversations about ferries and the special place we live in. Our riders and employees can help tell our story and become our biggest proponents.

• News that promotes WSF. • Traveler information so

customers know what to expect for their daily commute and island residents can plan around service changes.

Content Objectives

We use memes to remind passengers of important information such as a new sailing schedule.

We recognized a stellar employee and it led to earned media.

• Replies that benefit customers and help stop negative conversations.

• Crisis communications. In the event of a

major incident, Twitter serves as a platform for information and updates to the public and the media.

Content Objectives, cont.

WSF promotes WSDOT’s “Give Em a Brake” week recognizing that the ferry system is Washington’s marine highway.

A power outage and security incident at a ferry terminal led to joint messaging with the U.S. Coast Guard.

Pairing fun tweets with events and community partnerships bolsters engagement and encourages new users to follow us!

Cross promotion: Events

WSF held its first ever floating pep rally aboard on Oct. 5 to celebrate the Seattle Seahawks’ Monday Night Football game. The rally included music from a local high school marching band, a giant 12 banner and help from passengers and crew in leading cheers, chants and songs. More than just a feel good event, the pep rally: • Raised awareness that WSF is prepared for

crowds and provide tips for riders to reduce game-day delays

• Leverage game day excitement and the Seahawks’ popularity to strengthen WSF’s social media presence and reach

• Showed that we are a part of the communities we serve by providing a fun, free activity for fans and commuters

Seattle Seahawks pep rally

Top tweet

Regional event excitement Emerald City ComiCon

Holidays April Fool’s Day

Cross promotion: Non-service related

We played upon the rivalry between Washington’s two public universities for April Fool’s Day.

We celebrated Emerald City Comicon, which brings over 80,000 people to downtown Seattle.

Measurable Results Service related impacts More followers means more fun but also more people paying attention when we have critical service information to share!

Service Disruptions

Case Study: WSF is hiring WSF has an aging work force and needs more professional crew members to continue providing reliable service. Our “WSF is hiring” tweets tied to a ferry simulator media event in Dec. 2015 led to more than 500 job applications in four days, compared to 60 for the previous year. Click for the resulting Twitter chatter (https://storify.com/wsferries/pmi-media-event-dec-1-2015).

This unexpected April service disruption had 25,000 impressions and 350 engagements.

Stormy seas in March that caused delayed sailings had 16,000 impressions and 50 engagements.

Measurable Results #FerryLife

The Seattle area is known for challenging traffic, to celebrate the unique commute that many ferry riders enjoy on a daily basis and the ferry lifestyle, we created a hashtag to generate pride and a little friendly competition with our landside transportation counterparts.

BROCH Insert commuter tweet… one better than this one?