Content Evaluation of the Response to the Centennial Find Your Park Campaign

The purpose of this study was to make an assessment of the National Park Service’s (NPS) communication efforts through the Find Your Park (FYP) campaign, which launched in conjunction with the agency’s centennial anniversary in August of 2016. The FYP campaign encourages citizens to visit national parks and share their experiences on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube). This study sought to understand how audiences expressed their connections to national parks in comparison to the content shared by the NPS. It also sought to gain a sense of the extent to which the NPS has been successful in connecting with a key target audience—the cohort known as the millennials (i.e., people born roughly between the early 1980s and the early 2000s). The National Park Service benefits from knowing more about the contexts in which audiences are connecting with the ideas, places, and landscapes the agency manages. This is especially true of social media, a collection of digital spaces increasingly significant for meaningful practices of individual and social identity. This report offers recommendations for how the NPS can enhance its communication efforts to facilitate relevant digital connections between parks and the public going forward.

Johnson E, Champ JG, Leong K, Melena S. 2021. Content evaluation of the response to the centennial Find Your Park Campaign. Natural Resource Report. NPS/NRSS/NROC/NRR-2021/2242. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado.  https://doi.org/10.36967/nrr-2284970.