On Our Watch Social Media Campaign

In February 2024, KQED launched On Our Watch: New Folsom, the second season of its award-winning podcast series that follows the compelling journey of two whistleblowers within an elite investigative unit at California’s most dangerous prison. To amplify its release and attract new audiences, we created a dynamic social-first campaign featuring companion content that enriched the story with exclusive unreleased videos, key statistics, and additional context.

This approach deepened audience engagement while building anticipation for the podcast. Leveraging our collaboration with NPR—co-producer of Season 1 and home to an engaged audience of over 7 million Instagram followers—we maximized reach and visibility. The campaign included three multimedia carousels and two vertical videos shared across Instagram and TikTok, driving over 3.5 million impressions, 67,000 engagements, and over 1.6 million podcast downloads.

This overview video served as a trailer for the podcast, designed to capture attention and spark curiosity through a dynamic visual experience. It introduces audiences to the central figures and key moments of the story, utilizing photographs and video to immerse viewers in the narrative. The video also features Sukey Lewis, KQED’s criminal justice reporter and On Our Watch podcast host, providing a personal connection to the story. This post became the most engaged of the entire campaign, generating over 800,000 video views and 26,000 engagements.

As part of the reporting project, KQED obtained exclusive surveillance footage leaked by a source. This footage revealed that the perpetrators of a prison dayroom murder conducted a “practice run” a week earlier, in full view of correctional officers. Created as companion content to the podcast and shared exclusively on social media, we transformed this material into a dynamic multimedia carousel, seamlessly embedding videos to immerse audiences in the story. The format allowed listeners to visualize key moments from the podcast while sparking curiosity and driving interest among new audiences to download and engage with the series.

New Folsom stands out even among high-security prisons, with the highest overall use-of-force rate of any California state prison from 2009 to 2023, according to an in-depth analysis of CDCR reports by UC Berkeley researchers in partnership with KQED. To make this complex data more accessible, we created a visually engaging carousel featuring animated graphics that broke down the findings into clear, digestible insights. This social asset helped audiences quickly grasp the scale and significance of the data, enhancing their understanding and connection to the story.

The On Our Watch team collaborated with Amanda Glazer, a UC Berkeley statistician, to analyze the same use-of-force data featured in the earlier carousel. In this video, we take a different approach by having Amanda break down the complex findings into simpler terms using a hosted format native to social media along with additional data animations. This engaging format allows viewers to quickly digest the data while adding valuable context to the findings shared in the podcast.

To introduce social audiences to key figures in the story, we created a carousel that put faces to the names listeners hear in the podcast. This included correctional officer Valentino Rodriguez, whose sudden death would later raise questions from the FBI; his father, Valentino Rodriguez Sr.; and his mentor, Sergeant Kevin Steele, from the elite investigative unit where they both worked. While podcasts can vividly describe people and events, they lack the ability to show them. This carousel provided a visual companion to the narrative, helping audiences connect more deeply with the individuals at the heart of the story.

Audience Sentiment and Reception

The social media campaign for On Our Watch: New Folsom sparked powerful and meaningful engagement, with the comments section serving as a gathering place for listeners to discuss the podcast’s themes and share their reflections. Audiences responded with a mix of compassion, outrage, and gratitude, often highlighting the podcast’s importance and its impact in shedding light on corruption and justice within the prison system.


Many commenters encouraged others to listen to the podcast, amplifying its reach organically. The campaign also drew responses from people with personal connections to the story, including former correctional officers who offered additional insights. This vibrant dialogue demonstrated that the content deeply resonated with listeners, creating a space for connection and community around On Our Watch: New Folsom.