Client

Port of Vancouver USA

My Role

Account Support | Marketing + Social Strategy Lead

Agency

Quinn Thomas

The Challenge

The Port of Vancouver USA plays a major role in Southwest Washington, but many community members have limited visibility into what happens at the port and who works there.

Quinn Thomas was engaged to help strengthen community awareness and engagement, with a broader goal of making the port more accessible, understandable and connected to the people it serves.

While the agency also led a larger annual paid awareness campaign, my role focused on communications and marketing programs that kept the port visible and engaged with the community throughout the year.

The Strategy

Our approach was built around making a complex public organization feel more human and approachable.

That included highlighting the people behind the port, creating social content, and developing targeted campaigns around specific programs and priorities.

My work spanned several smaller but important initiatives, each designed to reach a different audience or support a different community-engagement objective.

My Contribution

I led several of the port’s ongoing marketing and communications workstreams, including organic social strategy and content, event promotion, print advertising and digital campaigns.

A major part of my role was also client counsel. I worked closely with port staff to help shape social strategy, recommend content approaches, and guide decisions around tone, risk and audience engagement for a highly visible public organization.

I also coordinated with designers, media partners and local publications to move individual campaigns from planning through execution.

The Work

Organic Social + Client Counsel

I managed the port’s organic social strategy and content development, with a focus on making the organization more approachable and helping community members better understand the people, projects and activity behind the port.

Because the port is highly sensitive to public perception, the work involved more than content creation. I regularly provided guidance on platform best practices, messaging, tone and audience response, helping the client balance transparency with reputational considerations.

In the first year of working with the Port of Vancouver USA, the social platforms saw an increase in every measurable statistic:

1.7M impressions (+645% from previous year)
71,000 engagements (+301% from previous year)
18,000 post clicks (+586% from previous year)

Procurement Outreach

To support the port’s goal of expanding and diversifying its vendor network, I market procurement opportunities to local businesses and contractors.

This work included developing print advertising, social ads, coordinating creative with internal partners, and working directly with local newspapers and publications to place ads with outlets serving Black, Asian and Hispanic communities.

The campaign adds a different communications channel to the broader account and helps connect the port with businesses that may not otherwise engage with its procurement process.

In 2025, I led the campaign to secure:

575,000 social media ad views
4,600 procurement website views
Six local print advertisements

Lecture Series Promotion

pov lectureseries 2026 socialstatic 01 march18

Each year, the port hosts a public lecture series featuring guest speakers and topics relevant to the Vancouver community.

I lead marketing support for the series, including social graphics, ad copy and coordination with creative and media partners to promote attendance through digital advertising.