MeteoSchweiz: a social media success story

Cesare Annecchiarico works at MeteoSchweiz in social media management. He explains how the government agency manages to communicate on social media in three official languages and increase its reach at the same time.

About MeteoSchweiz

MeteoSchweiz is the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology. The government agency collects, manages and analyzes weather and climate data. This allows it to issue warnings for dangerous weather such as storms, ensure that flights can run properly and provide information on pollution, pollen levels and radioactivity.

MeteoSchweiz is part of the Federal Department of Home Affairs. As a government agency, it is politically neutral and places management and information at the forefront of what they do. At its five locations in Zurich, Geneva, Payerne, Locarno and Arosa, 360 employees issue information about the weather and the climate in all three of Switzerland’s official languages.

Transparent Communication and Public Reputation

As a federal office, MeteoSchweiz is required to communicate according to the principles of freedom of information. Information must be published transparently, unless this is overridden by the public or private interests of the federal government. Social media is the best way to reach the general public and maintain a modern image.

The goal of MeteoSchweiz’s social media marketing is to create and increase its public prominence. Information about the weather and the climate should reach as much of the population as possible. One way of achieving this is through word of mouth: staff use their own channels to create a snowball effect and distribute content as widely as possible.

Interacting With the Online Community Without Language Barriers

MeteoSchweiz’s social media editorial plan covers a broad range of topics relating to the weather and climate. In addition to up-to-date information, blog posts full of background information on the climate, measurements and forecasts are shared. Reactions to the posts are monitored using the central ticket inbox as part of community management. This interaction with the public is especially important to the team.

Switzerland’s multilingual culture is a particular challenge. The team communicates with its community in all three of the country’s official languages. In order to work efficiently and to maintain clear structures, MeteoSchweiz began searching for a social media management tool.

A Clear Overview Within a Complex Team Structure

With Swat.io, MeteoSchweiz can easily give different staff members access to community management. This makes the multilingual element easy to manage. Team members in different locations can access all the tickets centrally. Inquiries are assigned across all locations and handled clearly by the responsible team. This means each location maintains control of its own language – an essential requirement for reaching all citizens in their preferred language via social media.

Alongside the community management ticket inbox, the central editorial calendar is also extremely important. Tweets and Facebook posts are entered and approved in the calendar. This allows all posts to be easily scheduled in advance – from daily weather reports to links to detailed blog posts. Each and every member of the social media team knows what they need to do from a single glance at Swat.io.

Why the Team at MeteoSchweiz Chose Swat.io

What impact has Swat.io had since you started using it?

“Internally, it makes a huge difference being able to chat about comments and posts directly in the tool. It makes our collaboration much more structured, especially as we are communicating from different locations and in multiple languages. It makes the work clearer and easier across all areas. It allows us in the communications department to maintain an overview of all our activities. Everything is brought together in Swat.io and we’re able to keep an eye on it all.”

What made you choose Swat.io?

“Swat.io is a very straightforward tool. The features are intuitive and you can find your way around it quickly. Swat.io also allows us to bring all our staff together in the tool and communicate efficiently on social media regardless of location and language. That’s really important for us, as it allows us to control everything in one tool.”

Who would benefit from using Swat.io?

“Other businesses and organizations, especially if they’re in an even more public position than we are. With Swat.io, you can quickly see if someone has responded to a post or a tweet. It’s then easy for the team to process these tickets. Once you reach a certain number of public comments, this becomes enormously helpful!”