This was a presentation from the November 2009 workshop in the Open Government Directive Workshop Series.
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1. TSA: A Social Media Success Story
2. A Bad Story Can Spread Like Wildfire
October 16 8:30 a.m.: Blogger puts up a post called: TSA Agents
Took My Son that alleges a TSO in Atlanta took her child away
during secondary screening. Very emotional post.
Story quickly spreads throughout the internet, via Twitter and
other blogs. TSA OPA becomes aware.
TSA OPA uses clues from the blog to provide information to TSA-ATL,
who scours through hours of CCTV footage to find tape of blogger
and her child being screened.
Footage clearly shows the story is false. SLT members approve
posting CCTV footage on the TSA Blog to let the public see for
themselves.
3. Quick Response Kills the Bad Story
Early Saturday morning, Response to TSA Took My Son was posted on
TSAs blog, including the CCTV footage.
We used Twitter to tweet the blog link to everyone who spread the
original post.
Story quickly changed from Bad, Evil, Wicked TSA mistreats
passenger to woman lies about screening experience.
4. Swift Action Gives Positive Results
Blogs that initially wrote about the story as if it were true
quickly apologized to TSA.
The frontline workforce expressed appreciation for HQ standing up
for them.
Social media experts cited TSAs effort as a textbook example of
killing a bad story and protecting our brand.
Not taking action would have eroded faith in TSA and hurt our
mission.
5. Statistics
Average Monthly Hits to Blog 50,000
Total hits to this post: 126,790
Average comments per post: 75
Total Comments to this post: 400
Total Views of the CCTV footage on YouTube: 17,508
Technorati Ranking: Top 636
6. TSA: On the Cutting Edge
What has to be the best ever use of social media by a bureaucracy ~
Jessica Gottlieb
The TSA's immediate response, on Twitter and on its blog, squashed
an internet meme that had been catching like wildfire -- a meme
that had the potential to do serious public relations damage to the
agency. ~ TPM Live Wire
Either way, the TSA's speed and deftness with new media tools
helped stave off what could have been a public image disaster for
the agency. ~ TPM Live Wire
