Security officer at Oklahoma cowboy museum takes over its Twitter during coronavirus outbreak, charms Internet
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Howdy, Tim!
The coronavirus pandemic has drastically disrupted daily life across America, turning office employees into remote workers overnight and forcing people to step up to new challenges on the job.
One security professional in Oklahoma has saddled right up to his new assignment, however, and is proudly running social media operations for the museum where he works — and Twitter users can’t get enough of his endearing personality.
“Hello, my name is Tim and I am the head of security for The Cowboy. I have been asked to take on the additional duty of social media management while the museum is closed,” Tim, a National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum employee, announced on Twitter on March 17.
All smiles in an official work portrait, the security guard explained that he was “new to this but excited. My team will also continue to protect and monitor the museum.”
Tim’s first tweet quickly went viral with over 48,000 likes, 5,600 shares and 1,400 comments, and the Oklahoma City museum’s Twitter audience exploded, with tens of thousands of new users following the account in a matter of days, one user claimed.
Ever since, Tim has charmed the internet with near-daily updates, showing off notable objects from around the museum and signing off all tweets with a polite “thanks, Tim.” He’s also shared social media tips he’s learned on the job, disclosing that his grandson Lucas suggested hashtags, while his colleague Seth Spillman advised how to help boost engagement.
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Along with his jokes (Tim isn’t taking himself too seriously), Tim has also melted hearts with his upbeat attitude and optimism, urging followers to remember they’d get through the tough times of the COVID-19 outbreak and declaring that he was happy to be “roped into” the new social media gig, sharing a photo of a lasso.
The security head has also impressed fans with his celebrity connections, sharing photos of himself with stars Kevin Costner and Sam Elliot, who he has met through work.
Spillman, the chief marketing officer of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, has since confirmed that Tim (who declined to share his last name) is indeed the museum’s security head and is helping the marketing team run the show during the ongoing outbreak – though they never expected that he’d become an overnight influencer.
«Tim has been a great partner in all of this. Our digital content manager and I pitched the idea about a week before we decided to shut down, and Tim was happy to participate,” Spillman recently told The Oklahoman.
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“We knew the museum would be closed, along with most everything else in the country, and we wanted to find a way to keep our audience engaged. Knowing that security would be left in the building no matter what, we had the idea of showing the museum to the world from the perspective of Tim,” he continued. “What we’ve found is an authentic voice for the museum; what we didn’t anticipate was how much that voice would resonate with people during this difficult time.”
«His primary role is much more important, and he does an excellent job keeping our museum safe and secure.»
