LA Metro Bus and Rail Service Changes, But Make it Social

Target Audience: Target audiences for this campaign were current Metro riders (in some cases, geotargeted along specific lines) and potential riders. ? Despite this relatively narrow audience, some of our posts were propelled far beyond our riders, followers and even our service area of LA County, in a testament that good content can drive huge reach.

Strategy Objective:While service change announcements may be welcome news to some riders, the changes may also be bad news for others and of little interest to still others.? For each of the six service-change announcements we made this year, 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 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, we leveraged paid social in order to add reach to those specific locations.

Situation Challenge: 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) as well as route changes. ? ?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. ? 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

Results Impact: For the six service-change announcements we made over the course of the past year, we created and posted a total of 69 content pieces across platforms. ? This content generated impressive numbers, including: ? 8 million organic impressions (initial views) across Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok? 806,000 engagements across platforms? Equating to a remarkably high 10% engagement rate by impressions? One of the videos, announcing a return to pre-pandemic levels of service on our light-rail lines, went legitimately viral, reaching ? 7 million views (initial plays + replays) on Instagram alone.?

Why Submit: 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.? The outstanding creative and strategy behind "More Trains, More Often" has already earned some high-profile recognition: Earlier this year, it won two Shorty Awards, a Webby Honoree, a Golden Post, and a Hashies award. ?