How a Mix of Confiscated Weapons Porn and Humor Has Made the TSA an Instagram Marketing Superstar

Curtis "Bob" Burns is an unlikely social media guru. He's middle-aged, lives in Ohio and works remotely for the TSA. Yes, that TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, which, at one time, was better known for awkward pat-downs than positive buzz. Burns became the TSA's social media lead in 2008, but it wasn't until about three years ago that he really found his marketing sweet spot. That's when he launched the TSA's Instagram account, which grew to 235,000 followers by 2015 thanks to the public's pornlike fascination with images of confiscated weaponry. Jimmy Kimmel no doubt helped raise awareness of the account by making a couple late-night jokes in 2013. [kickout id="1"] "We were still pretty new to it, so we were using a lot of hashtags," Burns recalled. "And Kimmel joked that we used more hashtags than a 13-year-old girl." His hashtag game rapidly grew in sophistication, and the account has increased to 681,000 followers, which is why Burns is speaking this afternoon at South by Southwest, where he'll give marketers some of his Instagram tips. Seized ammo photos combined with humorous captions is his go-to combo, and that marketing mix landed his brand at No. 4 on Rolling Stone's list of best Instagram account follows in a November article. The TSA even beat out Beyoncé. "Our content strategy is to educate, first and foremost," said Burns, chatting with Adweek before his SXSW presentation. "And while we are not in the entertainment business, we want to entertain people. We want to see them come back. We want to give them a behind-the-scenes look at what we do." That means images of expropriated pistols, stun guns, hand grenades, switchblades and wacky items like a bullet-adorned gas mask. Such posts, accompanied by Burns' sly copywriting, often get several thousand likes. [kickout id="2"] "The conversation before Instagram was, 'The TSA missed this pocketknife. The TSA missed that,'" Burns explained. "The conversation has changed to, 'My gosh, did you see what the TSA found?' It's pretty common to read in our comments people saying they didn't used to like the TSA, but now they do." And what advice does he have for Instagram marketers? "If you don't have good content on a particular day, it's OK to wait until you do," Burns said. "It might take three days for the right content to come in. You want to use quirky photos that tell a story. Think if you could post the photo without a caption … would it still give people something to talk about?" He contended that NASA and the U.S. Department of the Interior are other strong examples of governmental agencies utilizing social. "They got great content," he said. The TSA has a social media team that includes more than 10 dedicated helpers, who routinely respond to queries via the @AskTSA account from people standing in security lines at airports. "On Twitter and Facebook Messenger, we get about 1,000 queries a day," said Jennifer Plozai, director of external communications. "We're one of the pioneers in government doing that. We are available 365 days a year." But when it comes to social marketing, Instagram is where it's at with the TSA, and it's still gaining steam. "We accrued more Instagram followers [in 2016] than we did the prior year," Burns said.