During his tenure, Galbo has had little pushback from the higher-ups at the CPSC, and says any trouble he’s caused has been “good trouble.” He works closely with the CPSC research team to ensure he correctly presents the mounds of crucial data they collect, while still creating an image of aterrorizing a city. Galbo also notes that the agency’s former chairwoman, Anne Marie Buerkle , was regularly on board with the memes, so long as the social media team knew when to strike a more serious tone.
“One time I heard that we were doing too many cats and, allegedly, that had come from somewhere that we didn’t want to be getting attention from,” Galbo says. “So we laid low on cats for a while. And it sounds funny, but it goes to show you that the stakes in government communication are very high. That’s partially why other agencies are so interested in this.
Broadly speaking, the reigns on this type of creativity are loosening. The success of the CPSC Twitter account has prompted other government agencies and entities to try similar strategies. Galbo name-checks a few whose social media work he admires, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Department of Energy, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and even the Internal Revenue Service, which, Galbo says, “has a really fun Instagram account.