Think Government social media isn't supposed to be bold? We just proved it should be with Tourism Western Australia
Ask most people what government social media looks like, and you'll get the same answer: safe, sanitised, six layers of sign-off between the idea and the post. Seamus Boyer's own diagnosis of the industry is blunter: government social media is "still way too reactive... so much comms-based news and updates."
It's not really anyone's fault; approvals, brand guidelines, and public accountability all push in the same direction, toward content that offends no one and excites no one either. Most public-sector accounts end up optimising for the thing that's easiest to defend in a meeting, not the thing that's most likely to make someone stop scrolling.
So when a genuinely independent benchmarking report landed in our inbox this week, we read it twice.
State vs State: Public Sector Socials Edition, published by Seamus Boyer, assessed government social media across every Australian state and territory — state government, premiers, capital city councils, transport, health, police, and tourism — scoring each on five criteria:
innovation (what they're willing to try),
people (who they put in front of the camera),
proactivity (whether they're posting because it matters or because it's Tuesday),
boldness (how far they're willing to push before approvals push back),
and interaction (what happens after the post goes live).
Across almost every category, Boyer's conclusion was blunt: "people beat polish," and boldness is the ingredient missing almost everywhere in government social. NSW took out the overall crown with wins across three categories — a genuinely competitive field, not a token exercise.
It wasn't just tourism, either. Transport for NSW built its whole strategy around "not being a dick on public transport," leaning on staff testimonials the report calls "genuine and heartfelt rather than corporate," while Queensland Police let officers show "opinions, personalities and points of view" instead of a stock institutional voice. Government accounts that ditched the corporate tone kept winning, category after category.
Tourism WA won the tourism category. And as their appointed TikTok agency for the last three years, running strategy, content, and community management on that account… that made us very happy.
What an outside eye actually saw
We manage Tourism WA's TikTok day-to-day, so we obviously think their content is good — but that's exactly why an external, unrelated perspective matters more than our own. Boyer wasn't grading on a curve or reviewing a client relationship; he was comparing every state's tourism content against every other state's, cold, with no idea who was reading the results. What he called out specifically: Tourism WA content carries a strong sense of place and personality rather than simply showcasing pretty destinations. In his words:
"WA’s TikTok is also easily the best of the bunch. It has all the usual beautiful destination content, but throws in fun staff videos, tiny-mic interviews, and skits. That brings a completely different vibe and a much-needed human element to the mix, rather than just perfect people in perfect places."
That mattered because the rest of the tourism category wasn't weak. Boyer was blunt about just how polished and competitive the field was, at one point asking of the category as a whole: "Everything feels curated to death... Where is the personality? Why is nobody funny?" South Australia earned an honourable mention for the same instinct — "taking time to introduce us to people and characters" through storytelling like their Farina Bakery content — but WA's TikTok specifically is what tipped the category.
That's a pointed line, because "perfect people in perfect places" is a fair description of most tourism marketing, full stop — not just the government kind. It's the safe default: gorgeous scenery, a model who looks like they've never had a bad hair day, a voiceover with a slight British accent. It performs fine. It also looks exactly like every other destination's content, which is Boyer's broader and more uncomfortable point: tourism social across the board is becoming homogenised. Same edits, same creators, same POV format, same imagery — everyone converging on the same aesthetic because it's safe and it's proven to work elsewhere. Standing out increasingly means being willing to look and sound like nobody else, at the exact moment it's getting easier to look and sound like everybody else.
Why this isn't really about tourism
Here's the part that matters beyond one report or one client: everything Boyer praised in Tourism WA's content is the same approach we bring to every government and public-sector account we work on. We're currently working with the City of Armadale — including on the recent Six Seasons Trail launch — and have been genuinely impressed by how forward-thinking and adaptive that council is willing to be. More local governments need to follow suit; the appetite for braver content is often less of a blocker than agencies assume.
If you want proof this works even at the most risk-averse level of government, look at Tasmania. The report gives an honourable mention to Premier Jeremy Rockliff for making drone noises, picking favourite lollies, and doing skits on his own account — calling him "a good sport" for leaning into the silliness. A sitting Premier being genuinely goofy on camera, and it landing, is a far more surprising data point than anything from a tourism board. If boldness can work there, "our brand guidelines won't allow it" stops being a very convincing excuse.
Being bold with a government client doesn't mean being reckless. It means finding the version of "unexpected" that still clears legal, still protects the brand, and still gets signed off — and then actually using it, instead of defaulting to the safest option because it's easier to get approved. It means trusting real staff and real personalities to carry content, rather than stock footage and a scripted voiceover. Before anything goes to a client for sign-off, we run it against a version of the question Boyer's report effectively puts to every state: does this feel like something only this place could make? And a follow-up we've learned matters just as much: is this something people will actually stop for, or just something no one will complain about? If the honest answer to the first is "any state could have posted this," or the answer to the second is "nobody will complain, but nobody will care either," that's the content that gets cut before it ever reaches a client.
Boyer's own read on the industry: "relatively few [agencies] are genuinely prepared to do something unexpected or risky." That's a genuinely hard balance to strike — bold enough to cut through, careful enough to survive a public-sector approval chain — and it's not a coincidence that it's rare. Most agencies pick one side of that trade-off and call it a strategy. It's exactly what we built our government and destination marketing practice to do instead: hold both at once, on purpose, every time.
The takeaway, if you're not already convinced
If you're a tourism board, local council, or government agency reading this and nodding along at "our social feels like everyone else's" — that's not a content problem you fix with a bigger production budget. Often it's the opposite: less polish, more of the actual humans who work there, and a genuine willingness to be a little braver than the last round of approvals felt comfortable with.
We'd love to show you what that looks like for your organisation. Bold doesn't have to mean risky. It just means someone has to actually go looking for it, build the internal trust to use it, and get it through sign-off — instead of settling for safe because safe is faster.
Get in touch if you want your public sector social to feel like something only you could make.