Exploring a City via Transit
Finding new ways to attract younger people who use social media — and who are more likely to ride transit — is integral to Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority’s (MARTA) overall business strategy.
Since MARTA has been using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter for several years, the marketing team knew there were opportunities to reach millennials with Instagram because it’s a uniquely visual way of telling MARTA’s story. They decided MARTA’s Instagram page would be more about illustrating the transit lifestyle than corporate branding. They wanted to convey the experience of what you can see and do on MARTA that you can’t get driving in your car.
The team also decided that MARTA wouldn’t manage the Instagram page internally. Adam Shumaker was picked to manage it because they had worked with him before and knew he was an excellent photographer. Shumaker is also a millennial who lives downtown and takes MARTA to his photo shoots — he even got married on MARTA! Shumaker could help take away the fear of the unknown for people who don’t ride the system by using his pictures, and his pictures are stunning.
They created a caricature of Adam for our Instagram account and called it “MARTA_Explorer.” The caricature is a grown-up version of a coloring book character named “Wheels” that was created by Michael Allen, one of MARTA’s graphic artists.
They don’t pay Shumaker but give him a 30-day pass to ride the system. While they don’t tell him what to shoot, they evaluate and look at his posts and provide feedback. They have been comfortable with the arrangement because Shumaker knows MARTA’s brand and he knows their parameters.
So far, the reaction to MARTA’s Instagram page has been very positive. It’s really helping them to build rapport with the creative community in Atlanta. They have more than 200 posts and about 720 followers since MARTA Explorer officially launched in December. It really helps to have the support of the GM/CEO, Keith Parker, who appreciates the value of social media.
As far as metrics, they didn’t really have a hard number in their heads of how many followers they wanted. The goal was to build engagement and relationships with MARTA outside of Instagram. It has been growing organically and they haven’t done any real promotions yet. They were excited when one of their MARTA_Explorer Instagram posts was featured on “The Daily Share,” a show on CNN.
They have also built a relationship with #weloveatl, which started as a group of locals on Instagram who love the city and love to tell their stories with photos. Their Instagram has more than 15,000 followers.
The group hosted an Instameet to see some of their work that MARTA had on display at its Five Points station. About 75 people met in Decatur and took the train to Five Points. For some, it was their first time on MARTA. It was great to see a large group of people passionate about including MARTA in their photographic stories of Atlanta.
MARTA’s marketing department is planning to focus even more on MARTA’s Instagram presence with a contest. A lot of people do great photography and they hope to get them more involved in a way that’s gratifying to MARTA and to the community.
Point of Interest
The Chittenden County Transportation Authority (CCTA) has an Unlimited Access program for students, faculty and staff who work and attend classes at any of the three major colleges/universities in the Burlington Area. Riders using this program contribute approximately 17 percent of CCTA’s system ridership annually.
Through a collaborative relationship with a sustainable transportation course and professor at the University of Vermont, CCTA received feedback from students who said they were feeling overwhelmed with the CCTA Bus Map & Guide. The abundance of information included in the guide was hard to understand and it was believed that this was preventing students from not even trying the bus. With this feedback, staff knew they needed to find a way to make the system more approachable for this key ridership group.
However they presented this information, it needed to be easier to understand and more relevant to this group of riders. Staff asked themselves; if I were a college student, what would I need to get off campus. So they stripped-down the Burlington route map by looking at current routes and their proximity to key points of interest like shopping, restaurants, entertainment, etc. They applied that information to a printed, foldout piece that could fit into your pocket. One side included the stripped-down map and with key points of interest, then included basic “how-to” information on the other side. It also included a pocket that can accommodate a student ID card which students swipe in the farebox upon boarding the bus. In addition to the pocket-maps, CCTA printed this new service map in large format and posted them at select shelters around campus.
The thinking behind this was if students could get a better understanding of the basic service, they would feel empowered to go deeper and explore more services outside of the Burlington Area. This would then enable them to utilize other tools, such as CCTA’s website, Google Transit and eventually a mobile application where they can better interact with the transit service.
CCTA printed 7,000 maps and they have distributed them all and the results were overwhelming. Campus offices are asking for more and CCTA’s TDM partner CATMA had been distributing them as well with a lot of positive feedback from students, faculty and staff. This process has also been a springboard to discussions about how CCTA can present information across all communication.
