With a simple caption and a single photo,
ITD’s Instagram account was born

For those unfamiliar with Instagram, it’s just one of many social-media platforms inundating society these days. Some platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat have a stronghold in their respective markets, while others such as Vine, Meerkat and MySpace have long since left the virtual world.

Unlike the aforementioned failed counterparts, Instagram has continued to increase in popularity each year since its 2010 launch, with a particular appeal to a younger audience base.

“We’ve seen great things over the past few years with ITD’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, but we were worried we may be missing a key demographic of younger Idahoans,” said ITD Communications Manager Vince Trimboli. “Instagram boasts around one billion users each month, and 65% of those users are between ages 18-34.”

The Instagram account is the department's first new social-media platform since ITD created Facebook and Twitter accounts in 2009.

In recent years, as Facebook has seen a decline in younger users, Instagram has experienced a substantial gain. Perhaps it’s the perception of Facebook being the “platform parents use,” or perhaps it’s simply the visual appeal of Instagram’s application, but regardless of the reason for its growth, ITD made a strategic decision to join the Instagram game.

In order to properly roll out ITD’s account, and because Instagram is so heavily weighted toward compelling visuals, department photographer Mark Hall was brought on board to lend his talents and expertise.

“Unlike other multi-faceted platforms out there, Instagram is exclusively for sharing photos,” said Hall. “Just any photo won’t cut it with this image saturated audience though, and the competition for their attention is steep. That’s why we took great strides to carefully plan out the overall look and feel of our Instagram page, long before our first post was ever made.”

Mark works with other members of the communications team to plan themes and garner images for posting. Some photos are pulled from archives and some come in from ITD employees, but a large portion of the photos come from those Mark has captured himself.

“Mark is one of our greatest assets here at ITD,” said Trimboli. “We knew that in order to build an Instagram account worth following, we would need to pull from his artistic vision.” 

Although ITD is fortunate enough to have a dedicated photographer in the department, Hall wants everyone to know they are welcome to provide photos for future use.

“This is truly ITD’s Instagram, and it’s important that it reflects every area throughout our state. We have a goal to build the best
transportation Instagram in the nation; one that reflects the people we are, the work we do, and the beautiful places our roads take you.”

 

Please follow ITD on Instagram and encourage others to do the same at idaho_transportation_dept

If you have photos you would like to share with the Instagram team, please send them to mark.hall@itd.idaho.gov or jessica.williams@itd.idaho.gov.

Published 05-24-19