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T h e
B C B u s i n e s s
G u i D e T O
s O C i A L M e D i A
Beep
Beep!
Tweet
Tweet!
how vancouver's
beleaguered
transit authoritY
becaMe a
twitter star
b y t r e Vo r m e l a n S o n
L
ast su m mer, when
Metro Vancouver's Sky-
Train system shut down
not once but twice for
hours on end—leav-
ing thousands of passengers
stranded several metres in the
air—at least one arm of Greater
Vancouver's transit authority
was prepared for the crisis: its
social media team.
"It was all hands on deck,"
says Robert Willis, senior com-
munications advisor for Trans-
Link and the guy in charge of
the company's social media
strategy. "In those kinds of
situations, our main channel
for service and customer rela-
tions is our @TransLink Twit-
ter handle." For TransLink,
which has roughly 70,000
Twitter followers, Twitter
has become the main way to
handle customer service que-
ries—questions like "which
bus should I take?" or "why
the hell isn't the SkyTrain
moving?"
"We're mentioned on Twit-
ter around 900 times a day,"
Willis says, and "we want to
reply to as many people as
possible." That has meant a
team dedicated to Twitter.
While Willis and one other
staffer operate the transit
authority's various social
media accounts—posting on
Facebook, Instagram and a
blog, as well as handling the
more politically sensitive
tweets—TransLink has a Twit-
ter team of roughly 15 staffers,
with shifts rotating between
6:30 a.m. and 11 p.m., 365
days a year. "There's always
one person watching Twitter,
