Be where your customers are Social media usage of BKK Dávid Vitézy Chief Executive Officer BKK Centre for Budapest Transport

Why is social media important for a public transport authority? Direct link to the passengers Fastest way to inform the public Easy to target messages for different groups More than 50 percent of inhabitants of Budapest use Facebook Gain a lot of supporters (fans) who are interested in public transport, willing to share our posts and answer questions on Facebook Facebook is a communication channel that can bypass technical breakdowns affecting our server, or our own website 2

Click to edit Master subtitle style 3 5 million Facebook users (Total population 10 million) 1.2 million users in Budapest and 1.4 million users in the metropolitan area Population of Budapest: 1.7 million 1 million people use Facebook via mobile phone in Budapest Social media share in Hungary: 50% ~15% ~5% Social media over- view in Hungary BKK's Facebook Hungarian Facebook

BKK in the social networks BKK’s FB Page launched on the same day when the authority was founded More than 90,000 followers Average organic reach per day in 2014 Q3: 31,086 users Average paid reach per day in 2014 Q3: 173,091 users Best performed posts reached more than 650,000 users in Budapest Own FB Page for Budapest public bike- sharing system with 10,000 followers 4 Youtube channel: 246,000 views, 350 subscribers Twitter: 460 followers Instagram: 572 followers Different social networks for different purposes

How do we communicate traffic alerts? Twitter would be suitable to communicate traffic alerts In Hungary Twitter has not got huge audience Less than 10 percent of internet users in Hungary use Twitter actively. It can’t be effective Biggest Hungarian Twitter channels have a few tens of thousands of followers We had to find out another solution to provide our customers with traffic alerts Approximately 1 million smartphone users are in Budapest We developed a website and an app, called BKK Info which sends traffic alerts by or to your phone o You can customise which service you are interested in o people use the app 5

FUTÁR – journey planner app for web, smartphones and tablets FUTÁR gives detailed information on schedules for each stop Real-time position of public transportat vehicles in operation The app app offers both the “door-to-door” trip planner service and also accessible route options 6

BKK on Facebook In September 2014: 571 posts 30,500 likes onto the posts 4,300 shares 5,100 comments 71,000 readers to the BKK’s homepage 5,477 new followers 1.3 million monthly total reach Spent cca € on advertising 7

Heavy snowfall in Budapest Metro line 4 Number of followers of BKK’s Facebook page from the beginning

How do we use Facebook? Communicates o daily traffic updates o extraordinary situations o the transport service developments o planned service changes o traffic alerts Uses for public consultation Builds the authority’s image 9

Click to edit Master subtitle style 10 Majority of our posts give information about the daily changes (i.e. traffic diversions, accidents etc.) We inform passengers how to avoid the traffic problem These changes are communicated on our smartphone application and on our website, too. The planned service changes are also communicated We share press releases from our website on Facebook We try to direct our passengers to the homepage Communication of daily traffic updates

Click to edit Master subtitle style 11 We realised that a lot of people try to gather information from Facebook if something extaordinary happens. Case study: o of January of 2013 – Huge snowfall in Budapest o Communicate all the changes and traffic service disruptions all over the city o Public transport was free of charge during these two days Results: o 3,500 new followers during two days without any advertising o 3,630 shares o 2,500 comments o 5,700 likes o Spent 0 € Our Facebook page became an important player in Budapest’s public sphere Communication of extraordinary cases

Crisis communication Flood on the Danube river between 8-13 of June 2013 Water level surpassed the previous records The water reached a M2 metro station, HÉV suburban railway lines, tram lines. BKK tried to reach passengers via Facebook BKK launched a new page about the flood: bkk Results during this period: 144 posts 6,437 shares Reached cca. 650,000 Facebook users in Budapest 2,700 new followers Spent cca. 220 € 12

13 „Please use public transport instead of your car during the flood!” This post reached 58,560, shared by 188, liked 283 users

14 BKK shared information about service changes during the flood on a dedicated page.

15 Key is the VIRALITY. If you have valuable contents, people will share it, and your message will spread like a virus. 786 shares, reached users A picture is worth a thousand words It is more effective if you show the events next to the description.

shares, reached users A picture is worth a thousand words It is more effective if you show the events next to the description.

shares, reached users A picture is worth a thousand words It is more effective if you show the events next to the description.

18 We launched metro line M4 on 28 of March 2014 We also transformed the surface transportation network Previous feedback gathered trough public consultation on FB and on BKK’s website Show our transport service developments

19 This post reached users, shared by 155 people „New metro, new transport lines on the surface”

20 Jude Law as BKK ticket inspector in the new metro – 1140 likes, 166 shares The M4 campaign on FB gained cca. 4,500 new followers, reached 1.5 million people in Budapest and metropolitan area.

21 Don’t be afraid to communicate in unusual ways! Three examples: 1.Children’s Day For only one day on tram lines 4-6 children announced stops We communicated it on FB too Extremely huge success and reach without any sponsorship Improve our image via Facebook Post about Children’s Day – little suprise for the passengers 4802 likes, 384 shares

22 Don’t be afraid to communicate in unusual ways! 2.Anniversaries We make creative posts about the anniversaries of Budapest tranportation People like stories and pictures about the city and about vintage vehicles „The cogwheel is 140 years old” 148 likes, 60 shares Improve our image via Facebook

23 Don’t be afraid to communicate in unusual ways! 3.Infotainment Find the way to communicate simple service changes People like cute things We introduced timetable changes in an unusual way Big success, a lot of positive comments, and huge reach without any sponsorship „Vacation has started!” – post about summer timetables 571 likes, 153 shares Improve our image via Facebook

Visual contents like nowhere else We create photo albums about events, developments We upload videos directly to Facebook 24

25 Facebook pushes page owners toward sponsoring posts Our Facebook page tripled its followers, meantime the organic reach barely rose Need to sponsor posts if you want to reach wide audiences Is it possible to avoid paying for Facebook activity?

26 During the heavy snowfall mainstream media discovered our Facebook page as a primary source. Mainstream media and BKK’s Facebook page

27 During the flood mainstream media keep referring to our social media activity. Nowadays biggest Hungarian newsportals watch and refer for our Facebook page. Mainstream media and BKK’s Facebook page

How to manage comments? We created a moderation guide that declares that we do not have enough resources to answer every single question on Facebook Plenty of positive comments  They are our voluntary spokesmen, ”prophets” Questions  We provide basic answers, but we ask our followers to contact customer services There are critics, too  Social media is an interactive communication area. We need to accept criticism and handle it as feedback We accept criticism, but we do not tolerate racism, antisemitism, swearing Direct messages received on Facebook are managed in accelerated procedure (winthin 5 days) We do not make it possible for users to write on our Facebook wall directly 28

29 BKK launched its Instagram page last October Colorful complement to our communication strategy It is more direct, more immediate than Facebook New special forms are available  We published our first hyperlapse video some weeks ago Instagram – We show our best moments

Summary Communicate where the people are reachable Know your audience otherwise you won’t be successful in communication Be informative and entertaining Show a lot of pictures and create albums Make diverse contents – traffic alerts, changes, extraordinary cases, developments and funny posts Link your Facebook posts to your homepage Boost your posts to reach new followers 30

31 Next milestone is We are close to reaching it.

Thank you for your attention!