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Social media platforms used by transport operators

enginedin

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A few comments in the Storm Bert thread made me wonder if any transport operators have started using any other social media platforms.


Part of a much wider problem of Twitter/X now being the de facto forum for all information. Everybody from journalists and governments to companies to individuals now posts everything on twitter and leaves updating the actual websites to much later (if at all). It's also present to a lesser degree on LinkedIn, and then other social media.

There has been some mass exodus from twitter X in some industries: a lot of organisations in the industry I work in now put more effort into posting on mastadon, bluesky, and linkedin, and the Guardian are no longer using X at all (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/13/why-the-guardian-is-no-longer-posting-on-x).

Have any transport operators started the migration to any other platforms yet / posting updates equally to anywhere else?
 
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Trainguy34

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Southeastern have a WhatsApp channel, often with updates every hour for disruptions even with no updates.
 

zwk500

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GWR (along with most TOCs) have a range of Social Media channels https://www.gwr.com/help-and-support/contact-us but often their actual website lists 'good service' when often it is very much not a good service.

I would have less issue with TOCs using Social Media if their in-house channels were the first source, and then SM was used as contact channels. However a massive problem is that often the information isn't put on www.gwr.com at all, and you have to go on to the Social Media channels to work out what's going on, which is problematic not least because the Algorithm often chooses not to show you the most recent posts from GWR but instead older ones that are closer to what it thinks you are more likely to interact with.
 

enginedin

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I would have less issue with TOCs using Social Media
I was trying to ascertain whether any operators were using platforms other than twitter, rather the the pros / cons of using social media in the first place, which is a different debate :)
 

Ant1966

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I was trying to ascertain whether any operators were using platforms other than twitter, rather the the pros / cons of using social media in the first place, which is a different debate :)
I'll never have a Twitter/X account. Previously due to apathy, now reinforced by being unwilling to contribute a single penny to anything associated with Elon Musk. As you need an account to fully see the train of some threads on the site, this puts me at a dsiadvantage in dealing with companies who choose to use it as their main means of disseminating information. Private companies, guess thats up to them, I can vote with my feet I suppose. Publicly funded companies (which includes all TOCs these days?), not so much. If Twitter/X is one of their channels, fair enough, again, you can choose not to use it. If its the primary channel then thats totally unacceptable imo.
 

zwk500

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I was trying to ascertain whether any operators were using platforms other than twitter, rather the the pros / cons of using social media in the first place, which is a different debate :)
Fair enough - the 'contact us' page of most TOC's websites indicates they're all present on most of the big Social Media sites like facebook, instagram, whatsapp, and Twitter/X
 

LUYMun

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Most, if not all, TOCs also have Instagram accounts, but these are more for marketing purposes than service updates. Instagram's Stories feature (a short video/post that is posted and disappeared after 24 hours) would be handy for passengers looking to see which of the latest disruption is occurring. Snapchat have something similar.
 

Russel

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I signed up to Twitter for the sole purpose of contacting a TOC during disruption as it looked to be the fastest way of getting a response and it's been my go-to ever since.

Putting politics and views of Elon to one side, it's a very handy tool.
 

A S Leib

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For lots of smaller bus operators, finding any information seems challenging at times. My original plan for today was going to Ripon; whilst I found cancellation notices for the Harrogate Bus Company, I couldn't find any updates for Dales Buses.
 

12LDA28C

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I was trying to ascertain whether any operators were using platforms other than twitter, rather the the pros / cons of using social media in the first place, which is a different debate :)

Several TOCs have a page on Facebook.
 

Taplowgreen

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GWR (along with most TOCs) have a range of Social Media channels https://www.gwr.com/help-and-support/contact-us but often their actual website lists 'good service' when often it is very much not a good service.

I would have less issue with TOCs using Social Media if their in-house channels were the first source, and then SM was used as contact channels. However a massive problem is that often the information isn't put on www.gwr.com at all, and you have to go on to the Social Media channels to work out what's going on, which is problematic not least because the Algorithm often chooses not to show you the most recent posts from GWR but instead older ones that are closer to what it thinks you are more likely to interact with.
GWR's Twitter/X team now tend to disable the ability to reply to their more significant tweets (such as those which advise not travelling because of their increasingly shambolic weekend service on a weekly basis) which somewhat limits its usefulness as a means of obtaining information.
 

ejstubbs

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GWR's Twitter/X team now tend to disable the ability to reply to their more significant tweets (such as those which advise not travelling because of their increasingly shambolic weekend service on a weekly basis) which somewhat limits its usefulness as a means of obtaining information.

Do they allow and respond to direct messages via X? I've certainly had direct interaction with LNER that way - in fact I was quite disappointed when I found that they currently don't have that facility enabled on their Bluesky account.

It's all very well people saying "most TOCs (or whatever] have Instagram/TikTok/Whatsapp/Facebook/etc accounts" but it's all too often the case that one company will be on X and Facebook and Instagram while another is on X and Whatsapp. Basically, X is pretty much the universal default SM channel [I'm not saying this is a good thing], the others are alternatives without any one of them having the same breadth of coverage of the market. What this means is that if you don't want to have the X on your phone you end up with having to have all the other apps, and then juggling between them trying to remember which company is on which.

A while ago an item of potentially life-critical equipment (an avalanche beacon) was discovered to have a serious design flaw. I had one of said devices, and had registered it with the manufacturer at the time I bought it, so they knew I had one and they had my e-mail address. The manufacturer announced the recall/replacement scheme on...Instagram*. These are the sorts of problems that can arise with the multiplicity of communications channels we have now, with organisations which have useful or important information to share unable or unwilling to agree on a single primary channel - or as in the case of X, the de facto nearly-a-universal-standard channel falling into the hands of an uncontrollable bad actor.

* Which I don't use, and on the few occasions when people have sent me a link to Instagram I have failed utterly to comprehend what it is supposed to be for. And this is me with 40-odd years in the IT industry working for manufacturers, software vendors and customer organisations. I truly pity older people who don't have my depth of knowledge of the technology trying to navigate their way through some of what passes as a must-have app these days.
 

Bletchleyite

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* Which I don't use, and on the few occasions when people have sent me a link to Instagram I have failed utterly to comprehend what it is supposed to be for.

It's for sharing curated photos/videos of your life with your mates (and more widely) to make you look good, essentially. It's not really a platform for interacting with businesses, though it can be used by them for advertising purposes by posting the same sort of content.
 

riceuten

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GWR (along with most TOCs) have a range of Social Media channels https://www.gwr.com/help-and-support/contact-us but often their actual website lists 'good service' when often it is very much not a good service.

I would have less issue with TOCs using Social Media if their in-house channels were the first source, and then SM was used as contact channels. However a massive problem is that often the information isn't put on www.gwr.com at all, and you have to go on to the Social Media channels to work out what's going on, which is problematic not least because the Algorithm often chooses not to show you the most recent posts from GWR but instead older ones that are closer to what it thinks you are more likely to interact with.
One of the problems outlined to me by a First employee was that the only people with access to approval of posting on the social media platforms are usually the people tasked with sorting out the disruption, who don't have time to do the former

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

One of the things I also realised with social media was that some TOCs outsource this function to a third party. Often the people replying will have absolutely no idea how the railway is run. Eurostar did this with a company called "We Are Social". Their activities consisted of posting canned responses, and anything more complex than that was ignored
 
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jon0844

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I can see a lot (if not all) businesses opening up accounts on Bluesky and using it for customer services, but this requires Bluesky/third parties to have the sort of tools to manage queries and keep track of DMs, checking account credentials and so on. Tools that exist in great numbers from X, assuming Elon didn't break half of them from working.

I can't see businesses quitting X anytime soon, but as more and more people move they need to be on Bluesky. Personally, I prefer Threads in terms of engagement and conversation but think in the long run, Bluesky will become the closest to being a replacement. After all, it looks most like what Twitter was.

Meta will hopefully add similar features to Threads too, and companies will then seek to use that too - but it will come down to the software tools. If a social media management tool can work on X, Threads, Bluesky and others then it becomes even easier (and cheaper for companies to manager). I have to admit I've not looked at the software for some time, but any big company is using dedicated software because we've come a long way from one person being in charge of an account.

Sure, some companies might have set up an account and will post periodically, more as a placeholder, but that won't work in the long-term.

It's a real shame what Elon has done to X because it generally worked well before. You could use it for whatever you wanted, from just following businesses to using it as a 'town square' or whatever Elon talks about it becoming now - and you didn't have right-wing, racist/nationalist, nonsense rammed down your throat from accounts you don't even follow.
 

TUC

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I can see a lot (if not all) businesses opening up accounts on Bluesky and using it for customer services, but this requires Bluesky/third parties to have the sort of tools to manage queries and keep track of DMs, checking account credentials and so on. Tools that exist in great numbers from X, assuming Elon didn't break half of them from working.
What matters is what works. The reality is that, if they use social media for updates on such situations at all, most ordinary people are far more likely to look at X/Twitter rather than Bluesky. The organisations I've seen moving to Blue seem to be far more concerned about virtue signalling than what works for their customers, and that is absolutely the wrong starting point.
 

Kite159

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What matters is what works. The reality is that, if they use social media for updates on such situations at all, most ordinary people are far more likely to look at X/Twitter rather than Bluesky. The organisations I've seen moving to Blue seem to be far more concerned about virtue signalling than what works for their customers, and that is absolutely the wrong starting point.
Or they see that Twitter is on a death spiral and signed up to accounts on Bluesky before a cyber squatter beats them to the punch to register a Bluesky account under "TOC name" in the hope of getting a nice pay day when the actual TOC has to buy the account from them.
 

Ant1966

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What matters is what works. The reality is that, if they use social media for updates on such situations at all, most ordinary people are far more likely to look at X/Twitter rather than Bluesky. The organisations I've seen moving to Blue seem to be far more concerned about virtue signalling than what works for their customers, and that is absolutely the wrong starting point.
I dont mind what their reasons are for moving. If enough do it then it builds up a critical mass then more oridinary people use it. Rinse and repeat. Things can change quickly, especially on the Internet.
 

GusB

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Whatever social media presence a company has, it always irritates me that the last outlet to be updated is the company's own website. This should be the first port of call for anyone who wants to find out information about service disruption and companies need to ensure that relevant staff have the permissions to be able update that part of the site.

Providing information via third-party social media plaforms such as Twitter/X and Facebook is fine as long as that information can be accessed freely via the web; it's not acceptable to require someone to sign up to a particular service.

I dont mind what their reasons are for moving. If enough do it then it builds up a critical mass then more oridinary people use it. Rinse and repeat. Things can change quickly, especially on the Internet.
This is a very good point; we've had a relatively stable period where Twitter and Facebook were fairly stable platforms that could be relied upon. However, all it takes is for some multi-billionnaire with a massive ego to upset things. There shouldn't be any need for a particular platform to gain a critical mass.

The only tool that should be needed to access information about delays and disruption is a web browser.
 

TUC

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Whatever social media presence a company has, it always irritates me that the last outlet to be updated is the company's own website. This should be the first port of call for anyone who wants to find out information about service disruption and companies need to ensure that relevant staff have the permissions to be able update that part of the site.

Providing information via third-party social media plaforms such as Twitter/X and Facebook is fine as long as that information can be accessed freely via the web; it's not acceptable to require someone to sign up to a particular service.




The only tool that should be needed to access information about delays and disruption is a web browser.
Why? There's nothing special about a web browser as compared to a social media platform.
 

thenorthern

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Most also use Facebook, not sure if any have moved to Bluesky yet.

One of the problems is railway companies don't want to be seen as political. While there are social media sites such as Gab, truth social and gettr which are seen as "right wing" and the railways wouldn't want to associate with at the present moment Bluesky is seen as left wing and if a TOC was to associate with Bluesky it could be seen as political.
 

GusB

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Why? There's nothing special about a web browser as compared to a social media platform.
That's the point I'm trying to make; there's nothing special about a web browser and there needn't be! It's a portal that allows people to access information on the web and any company that wants to put out information should not be relying on anyone having the latest operating system for Phone Platform A or Phone Platform B.

I'm not sure that you completely understand the difference between a web browser and a social media platform; social media platforms are largely accessible via a web browser and apps, but there should not be any need to install an app. If AcmeRail wants to provide travel updates and it only does so via Twitter or Facebook and those apps require customers to sign up and log in to those apps, it means that those people who are not prepared to sign up to those apps are excluded from that information.
 

TUC

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That's the point I'm trying to make; there's nothing special about a web browser and there needn't be! It's a portal that allows people to access information on the web and any company that wants to put out information should not be relying on anyone having the latest operating system for Phone Platform A or Phone Platform B.

I'm not sure that you completely understand the difference between a web browser and a social media platform; social media platforms are largely accessible via a web browser and apps, but there should not be any need to install an app. If AcmeRail wants to provide travel updates and it only does so via Twitter or Facebook and those apps require customers to sign up and log in to those apps, it means that those people who are not prepared to sign up to those apps are excluded from that information.
With respect, that sounds like another version of the mobile phone argument where some rail enthusiasts seem curiously resistant to approaches taken by the vast majority of the population.
 

birchesgreen

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Most also use Facebook, not sure if any have moved to Bluesky yet.

One of the problems is railway companies don't want to be seen as political. While there are social media sites such as Gab, truth social and gettr which are seen as "right wing" and the railways wouldn't want to associate with at the present moment Bluesky is seen as left wing and if a TOC was to associate with Bluesky it could be seen as political.
Well Twitter is owned by a member of a foreign country's new administration and is actively interfering with British politics so i don't see how being on Twitter can't be seen as political now.
 

TUC

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Well Twitter is owned by a member of a foreign country's new administration and is actively interfering with British politics so i don't see how being on Twitter can't be seen as political now.
Because many ordinary people aren't preoccupied with such matters. One could equally argue that Twitter's previous owners actively sought to manipulate public opinion by the kind of tweets they did or did not allow to be posted, and how thry banned certain people. I'm not sure where such arguments take us.
 

Djgr

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Because many ordinary people aren't preoccupied with such matters. One could equally argue that Twitter's previous owners actively sought to manipulate public opinion by the kind of tweets they did or did not allow to be posted, and how thry banned certain people. I'm not sure where such arguments take us.
The argument takes us to the point of acknowledgement that Twitter (as was) is on a death spiral and therefore its days as a suitable general channel for information are numbered.
 

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