Using Social Media to Navigate a Snow Day

Today, people throughout Seattle are either celebrating or commiserating. It’s not a sporting event, it’s a snow day.

Cars slide down an I-90 off-ramp on Sunday, January 15, 2012.

It’s rare that the city of Seattle gets snow, even though an hour away the mountains get pounded with some of the most snow in the country. With this moderate climate, it’s no wonder that the city has little to no infrastructure to handle snow and ice removal.

To make it even worse, most city residents have no snow tires and no snow-driving experience. Combine no snow plows, no salt or sand, no snow tires, no snow-driving experience, and Seattle’s steep terrain and you have a recipe for disaster. Hence our snow day. Three inches of snow and the city’s gone quiet.

Many Seattle streets are deserted on Wednesday, January 18, 2012. #snOMG

But although the city is quiet, it’s not silent. Some people are working hard.

King County Metro Transit is doing its best to keep bus routes, albeit “snow routes,” running. And it’s also doing its best to keep King County informed using its website, call centers, and social media.

I work with a lot of governmental organizations, so I know some of the challenges to instituting a social media policy and plan. That’s why I’d like to commend King County Metro Transit for its efforts at convenient communication. This organization is trying to provide the information where its consumers are.

King County Metro uses Facebook, Delicious, YouTube, an RSS feed, and Twitter. If you look at King County Metro’s numbers, most of them are relatively small. For instance, they have 39 subscribers to their YouTube page and 318 likes on their Facebook page. Twitter, by far, is the most popular King County Metro social media venue with 4,912 followers.

Given King County Metro’s audience and messages, Twitter makes sense. Twitter is an incredible resource for real-time information. When you’re waiting for a bus, you want up-to-the-minute information and Twitter provides the most searchable, readily available, crowd-sourced immediate information on the internet (in my opinion). Without a doubt, King County Metro provides the best updates on Twitter because the venue fits.

A King County Metro Transit bus on its "snow route" on Broadway in Seattle.

But King County Metro is also making valiant efforts at understanding the other social media venues and trying to maximize each venue’s utility. On Facebook today, King County Metro posted: “Snowy Wednesday here in King County. How about starting a rider-to-rider chat. What are the travel conditions like where you are? Have any bus-travel tips today in addition to ‘stay home if you can?’”

King County Metro then populated the post with a few comments harvested from Twitter and the call center to get comments started. A common question from an organizational leader might be: “Did it work?” Well, it didn’t stir very many comments, if that’s what you mean. But was it a good idea? Absolutely.

Nothing on social media is going to matter if it doesn’t bring value to people. King County Metro is thoughtfully trying to use these tools to provide services – in this case, the service is providing information about it’s bus service. The few who commented, or those others who read the comments, might turn here for information next time they need metro information. King County Metro Transit is taking steps to help the conversation about their services happen, and they’re building a base for it to happen where they can participate, facilitate, and respond. King County Metro is learning, like so many others, that they can provide another level of service, build trust, and interact directly with their consumers.