1. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District
Social Media Palooza
APTA Marketing and Communications Workshop 2017

2. The BART System
Heavy rail rapid transit system in the San Francisco, Bay Area
44 years in operation
Service through 4 diverse counties
45 stations, 107 miles of track, 669 rail cars
Subway, elevated, and at grade tracks and stations
430,000 trips each weekday (added 100,000 in 5 yrs alone)
Voter elected Board of Directors
Policed by our own PD

3. Frequently Used Social Media Platforms
@sfbart 234K followers
@sfbartalert 75.8 K followers
@BARTSF
30K likes/followers
BARTable
2016:
365,302 views
18 videos produced
4 months
16 tracks
11,000 downloads

4. Other Social Media Used to archive: Twitter townhalls
Viral interactions
Record breaking ridership days
3.3K followers
3 live broadcast
5.8K views
Group themed
pictures to boards
and link to them

5. Social Media Staffing
No “Social Media Manager” it’s a shared responsibility
Customer Service: 1.25 FTE 9am-5pm Customer Service Reps responding to tweets (they only respond- they don’t tweet or retweet)
Communications/Media Team: All 4 spokespeople are on Twitter/Facebook frequently, 2 others on team also post & retweet as appropriate.
On-call spokesperson is expected to handle social during after hour emergencies.

6. What we are known for Having conversations Taking on Trolls
Using social to plant media pitches
Getting earned media based on social, headlines include:
Wow—Finally Some Honesty From the Government
With its back against the wall, BART tweets like a boss
BART's twitter manager drops truth-bombs, world cheers
BART and the LA Metro are in a weird transit-themed haiku battle
BART Mocks Trump On Twitter To Raise Awareness About Bond Measure
Called the “realest social media managers in public transportation”

7. Contact Me
Alicia Trost Communications Dept. Manager Connect on Linkedin