Lessons Learned from a Government Agency that Posts Surreal Memes on Social Media

How to make your messaging attractive to your target audience

The Consumer Product Safety Commission in the USA is an important government agency responsible for keeping the public safe. Often, these messages are boring and unengaging. After all, how do you make advice like wearing helmets or replacing batteries in carbon monoxide detectors fun? I stumbled on the strange, wonderful and surreal Twitter account for this agency. Pivoting to memes, their Twitter account has almost 90 000 followers. It provides the perfect case study for learning how to craft your message and grow an audience.

Joseph Galbo, the creative genius behind this Twitter account, joined the agency in 2016. As a copywriter, he honed his abilities to engage the public with science in a fun, engaging manner. At the time, the government agency wasn’t doing a great job of reaching parents and consumers. After all, who wants to read boring messages or statistics? Galbo’s approach involves a mix of surreal imagery, animal characters and sound safety advice. We want to see engaging, creative content on the internet. It makes for a perfect vehicle to disperse safety advice.

Getting Creative with Your Messaging

If your business offerings or products are not inherently exciting, it is hard to attract an audience. To reach more people, Galbo began creating safety-related memes with nothing but a cheap stock-photo account. Rather than tweeting about the importance of wearing a helmet, the account makes use of Ted. Ted is an ATV rider that appears in very dangerous situations but makes safety and helmets his priority.

People are much more likely to like or retweet an exciting image rather than an uninspired message. Further, disguising these posts as memes might attract more people to click on the images and spread them. After spending enough time on their social media posts, people will begin recognize its unique graphic style.

Ted the ATV rider, is also like the Marlboro Man. Though unlike the Marlboro Man, the brand he embodies promotes safety rather than cigarettes. Cigarettes cause lung cancer which is probably the polar opposite of safety.

Ted is an amalgamation of brand identity, safety and virtue. Other characters from cheap stock images might make recurrent appearances. People will learn to recognize these characters and the messages that they carry. Even when Galbo isn’t selling any particular product, a consistent aesthetic generates recognition of his ‘brand’. This messaging style helps safety messaging reach its target audience by uniquely differentiating itself from more text/graph-heavy messaging. Galbo describes his unique style in a 2018 article in The Verge:

When you’re a small federal agency trying to get the attention of every parent in America, if you just try to do it the normal way, you’re not going to be successful.

Posting Different Types of Content

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is more than spreading fun memes about safety. Occasionally, their social media accounts must deliver messages about product recalls. These posts must make sure that it does not poke fun at anyone impacted by a recall or safety problem. It is a fine line between funny and distasteful content. Rather than a continuous stream of posts about product recalls or hazardous situations, surreal safety posts and memes flood the spaces between more serious posts.

If you are managing social media for your brand or your company, not every post must be focused on your product. Some of the sillier content isn’t about safety first and foremost. Take the posts about Barks McWoofins, a dog concerned with your safety. Rather than delivering a specific, targeted safety message, it is just a dog wearing ski goggles. Nonetheless, McWoofins aligns with the ideas of safety inherent within the agency. Similarly, fun tweets that fit the branding or identity of your company can boost engagement and reduce product-posting fatigue.

Case Summary

Above all else, there is a lot of heart and authenticity at the center of this messaging. Galbo knows the importance of this platform for spreading safety information. His unique approach to such a boring topic is a useful case study. To summarize, this is what you can incorporate from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s exciting social media posts:

• Use unique messages and branding to differentiate yourself from competitors
• Images attract more people than simple text, stats or graphs
• Generate specific characters or styles for the audience to associate with your brand
• It’s not all business. Intersperse posts about your product with fun and engaging content that fits your brand identity
• Don’t be afraid your posts will flop, take risks and learn from any mistakes