(NEXSTAR) — The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation is arguably the best Twitter account not to follow.
The department, which oversees the protection of Oklahoma’s fish and wildlife, takes a somewhat unusual approach to maximizing social media engagement — at least as far as a state-run agency is concerned.
For example, ahead of Mother’s Day, the ODWC shared this sweet gem:
“Give your mother a fishing license, because at least it will come to her house and… not be such a disappointment.”
Granted, most of the department’s other tweets aren’t nearly like this Wendy’s†level brutal as above. But most are at least extremely stupid.
“Our ultimate goal with all of our social media accounts is engagement,” Kelly Adams, communications and education supervisor at OKWC, told Nexstar.
Adams explained how the OKWC’s social media strategy changed in 2020, after the department went viral with a tweet warning residents never to invite mountain lions into their homes.
“You are cold. They have fur. Don’t let in” the tweet warninged.
“It went viral unexpectedly and helped our leadership recognize the importance of being relevant (which can sometimes be ‘stupid’),” Adams said.
After that, according to Adams, the department hired a social media coordinator to “develop a voice” for the OKWC. In the years that followed, the OKWC has earned many retweets and “likes” for its memes, to be messages about “hot girl fishing licenses,” and his frustration with a local husky that keeps jumping in the water feature outside OKWC headquarters.
“If we got a nickel for every time a trainee had to pull husky hairs out of the office pond filter, we’d have two nickels — which isn’t much, but it’s weird it happened twice,” the department tweeted last month.
More recently, the OKWC has racked up over 260,000 likes for a post explaining how “bear spray DOES NOT work like bug spray.”
“We don’t want to say that again,” the . from last week cryptic tweet said.
That particular post was not caused by a specific bear-related incident, Adams told Nexstar. Rather, it was designed as a means to spread awareness for conservation and the great outdoors of Oklahoma.
“We advise [everyone] follow the state agency for fish and animals in their state,” Adams said. “If someone has a niche interest like snakes, birdwatching, bats, etc. there’s probably a page for that too.”