In March, Forest Service communications focused on the concept of working forests, highlighting numerous benefits forests have on local, national and international economies. In addition, we also celebrated the International Day of Forests and World Water Day, and the Forest Service participated in both. Throughout the month, social media remained one of the key components of the agency communications strategy, staying with the mission-focused messaging and achieving numerous successes.

TWITTER

When it comes to educational/”Did you know”-style messaging, Twitter is the king. By focusing on short, message-focused “factoid” messages, Forest Service was able to make March one of the most successful months on Twitter for the agency. Some of the key accomplishments included:

• Our messages were seen 2 million times during March, setting a new record for the agency

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• The engagement rate (meaning how many people click on our messages to expand them, click on links, etc.) for our messages remained slightly higher than at this time last year

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• Our top tweet last month was seen by nearly 300,000 people

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FACEBOOK

Our Facebook strategy differs from our Twitter strategy. Facebook allows us to build a stronger emotional connection between the National Forest System lands and our fans around the globe. On Facebook, we profile the beauty of our many sites to build up support and encourage visits to our forests and grasslands.

In addition to these messages, Facebook also remains a crucial channel for Forest Service to display its support for the Women’s History Month, a month-long event that resonates well with Facebook audiences. Our top message on Facebook in March was dedicated to International Women’s Day on March 8. As you can see, nearly 110,000 people saw this message:

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Facebook is also a great channel for the Forest Service to display its videos. In honor of Women’s History Month, in March we posted a video showcasing the impact women firefighters have in our agency. The video was viewed nearly 42,000 times on Facebook and received tremendous support from our followers:

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While this is just a quick overview of two of the larger social media accounts handled by the Forest Service, they only skim the surface of the widespread impact social media communications have on our agency. As we continue to integrate social media into our external communications, these channels will be a key approach to our mission-based messaging. Make sure to check us out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And if you have suggestions or feedback, let us know. You can email our social media manager, Aleksey Minchenkov.