Kristina Beaugh

As a Public Affairs Specialist at the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), Kristina has many communication roles including managing FSIS social media accounts, at-risk partnership development, and seasonal media outreach.

For several years, USDA/FSIS has struggled with communicating the important four steps for food safety–especially the Cook step that emphasizes thermometer use. One of the perceived barriers that consumers often face with using a food thermometer is looking like an “unexperienced” cook. Kristina used this perceived barrier as an opportunity to show how using a food thermometer is simple and can make one look like professional with the #GrillingLikeaPRO social media campaign. P–Place the thermometer in the thickest part of the meat; R–Read the temperature; and, O–Off the grill. The #GrillingLikeaPro campaign was developed to encourage consumers to use food thermometers while grilling, and implemented during Fourth of July seasonal outreach.

With the #GrillingLikeaPRO campaign, Kristina implemented assertive media outreach strategies to maximize media coverage for the agency. This campaign was the most successful social media campaign at USDA as the hashtag generated more than 5.5 million unique impressions and was used by more than 1,000 accounts, ranging from every day consumers to Congressmen to federal agencies to major private industries. In addition to creating a noteworthy campaign, she uses innovative methods that have increased social media followers, impressions, and content engagement. Kristina is passionate about making health communications better in the government.