A Look Into Central Park’s Social Media Strategy

Central Park through the Conservancy maintains a robust social media presence — pushing out different types of content depending on the platform

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By Tanya Dua

Digiday

Central Park may be as analog as an institution can get. But it turns out you don’t even have to be in New York to take a tour through Central Park — just follow it on Periscope. If you are in the city and happen to be strolling through the Sheep’s Meadow, be sure to affix the hashtag #CentralParkMoments to any tweets, or at least geotag that selfie. You may get a retweet from the park’s official social media accounts.

But it wasn’t always like this. Central Park’s blossoming on social media in many ways mirrors the park’s renaissance in recent decades — and that’s by design. After years of decline through the 1970s and ’80s, the management of Central Park was taken over by the nonprofit Central Park Conservancy, which has transformed a once-run-down public space into the city’s crown jewel. But even many locals have no idea.

“We started taking care of the park in 1980 through a contract with the City of New York and a lot of people don’t know that,” said Ann Sublett, social media senior manager at the Central Park Conservancy. “So a great part of our strategy is building awareness and telling people who we are and what we do.”

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