DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

In December 2020, Vistra was retained to provide strategic communications support to CBP’s Office of the Commissioner and Office of Public Affairs. Vistra’s first objective was to help CBP leadership establish effective messaging and outreach efforts to support the mission of CBP to protect the American people by combatting terrorism and transnational crime, safeguarding our borders and enhancing the nation’s economic prosperity by facilitating lawful trade and protecting revenue while facilitating lawful travel. To achieve this, Vistra developed a communications plan that identified key engagement opportunities throughout the year, which included an editorial calendar and plans for ad hoc events as they arose.

Concurrently, our team began implementing a robust Twitter outreach campaign to reach and engage both target audiences, as well as the American public. Vistra’s creative team developed a range of communication products, including infographics and other imagery that made Tweets more effective and engaging. Vistra also developed three critical communications and planning documents for OPA: A Public Communication Action Plan, an Internal Communications Strategy and Action Plan for CBP employees and a Congressional Communication Action Plan for communicating with Congress. These documents ensured message consistency throughout the CBP, both internally and externally and informed communications activities for agency leadership.

The results of Vistra’s social media outreach were impressive. Followers across all accounts – both the Commissioner and CBP’s Twitter accounts, Facebook and Instagram – steadily increased over the period. When compared to the previous nine-month period, the Commissioner’s Tweet impressions:

• Increased 671%
• Engagements increased by 1,073%
• Likes grew by 592%
• Replies increased by 622%
• The engagement rate per impression increased by 52%
• Vistra also increased the following of @CBP by 13% during the nine-month period