Doña Ana County communications team highlights Spanish outreach, TikTok strategy and BOCC recaps

Doña Ana County communications staff said their new Spanish-language channels and short-form videos have expanded reach and made county services easier to find and understand.

Ariana Parra, communications supervisor for Doña Ana County, said the digital communications team oversees marketing, social media, talking points and other materials that carry the county logo and that the office produces both English and original Spanish content rather than relying solely on translation. “We like to say, you know, we're putting out fires every day,” Parra said, describing rapid response to issues and events.

The team said the county recently launched Spanish Instagram and TikTok channels that are generating strong engagement with Spanish-speaking residents. Parra said those channels — and a Spanish public information officer role filled by Sergio Gallo — are helping reach residents in colonias and communities that county messaging previously missed. “I think we have the 1st Spanish PIO in the state of New Mexico,” Parra said; that claim was presented as staff observation in the episode and was not independently verified in the recording.

Sergio Gallo, the county’s Spanish public information officer, described producing platform-specific Spanish content and working with community partners. “We're here to serve you … there's nothing that we're trying to hide,” Gallo said, characterizing the office’s approach as transparent and audience-focused.

Staff explained the practical reasons for platform tailoring: reels and short videos perform best on Instagram and TikTok, while photos and longer captions work better on Facebook and LinkedIn. The team said it uses AB testing and analytics to decide what content to post where and aims to write material at a simple reading level so residents of all ages can understand it.

The communications office also runs quick BOCC (Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners) recaps. Parra said the BOCC recaps — called the “BOCC buzz” in English and a Spanish recap the team refers to informally — are produced weekly on Tuesdays and are intended to summarize long meetings for residents who cannot watch multiple‑hour proceedings. “The BOCC meetings these last couple weeks have been very long… anywhere from 5 to 7 hours,” Parra said. The team said it scripts the top three items and tries to post the recap promptly, in some cases publishing as soon as the meeting ends.

Joseph Vargas, the podcast host and a multimedia coordinator for the county, said the county added in-house live translation at commission meetings so attendees can view translations on monitors during proceedings. The communications staff also described the day-to-day workflow for covering events: at a recent Peachtree affordable-housing ribbon cutting, staff recorded English and Spanish reels and took photos so each platform could receive content suited to its audience; a new hire named Nevaeh produced English reels for social channels.

Beyond social platforms, the team said it partners with outside vendors for advertising, works on website accessibility, and is installing digital screens at community centers to reach residents without reliable internet or social accounts. Parra said the mix of light, discovery-oriented posts and serious, educational content is deliberate: entertaining posts build followers so the audience is already in place if the office needs to push emergency information.

The episode closed with a local, informal segment about green versus red chile and a reminder from Vargas that listeners can subscribe and find an audio-only version on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The communications team emphasized that these tactics are intended to make county services more visible and usable for residents, particularly Spanish speakers and people who may not have engaged with county communications previously.