Wendy Aguilar, a long-time journalist turned public relations and social media specialist, was recently recognized for her work with the Sacramento Fire Department at the Government Social Media Conference in May.
Aguilar was born and raised in Santa Clarita, and after many career stints, now serves as the media and communications specialist for the department. She was recognized with the Social Media Leadership Award, as well as earning the department the inaugural TikTok Creative Catalyst Award for innovative public safety messaging.
Aguilar has grown the agency’s TikTok account by 140,000 followers since its inception in 2021.
“I ended up in Santa Clarita when I was 10 years old. I went to Newhall Elementary, then Placerita (Junior High), graduated from Hart High School and went to College of the Canyons before transferring to Cal State Northridge,” Aguilar said. “After many years as a journalist and working in television news, I made the switch to doing public relations for a school district in Sacramento. I really enjoyed being able to transfer my storytelling skills to a new career, and eventually I came across a job opening for the Sacramento Fire Department.”
According to Aguilar, the role was perfect for her given her storytelling chops and the familiarity of breaking news adrenaline.
Starting the role in 2019, Aguilar came in with a lens of being curious and telling the stories of the men and women on the front lines. Little did she know that her role in building a strong social media presence would earn her several accolades over the years.
“One thing that was impactful for me in the beginning was that the second day on the job, the Sacramento Fire Department lost a female firefighter named Tamara Thacher, who died on Nov. 26. I never had the chance to meet her, but her story was important to me. I thought there’s so much more to a person than their photos — she impacted people, she was a role model, she cared so much about mental health. I went back and interviewed people that she impacted, and how transformative her role was in these people’s lives,” Aguilar said. “I also pushed for us to have Facebook Live, and that was the first time we ever did it. We were able to get 15,000 views within those 48 hours.”
Starting the TikTok account with Keith Wade, former public information officer and current battalion chief for the Sacramento City Fire Department, the duo were able to find success with various creative ideas.
“We wanted to inspire the next generation of firefighters, while also telling our story. One of our early videos included a puppy being saved, and we got about 500,000 (views) and a ton of new followers. I also started a ‘What’s for Lunch’ series, where I would go to different stations and capture the firefighters putting their lunch together. All of a sudden, you see firefighters cooking, and it caught people off guard,” Aguilar said. “When I took over the account, the Instagram account was at 23,000, and now it sits at about 165,000.”
Between the “What’s for Lunch” and puppy rescue video, Aguilar saw an initial increase of nearly 50,000 followers. From there, Aguilar has cultivated a relationship not only with the firefighters and the public separately, but also with how the firefighters are represented and perceived by the community.
“My favorite part of all of this for me is when members come after something that I’ve done and they tell me the reaction that happened with either their family or their friends — the pride and joy I see on their faces, they feel seen, they feel heard. We have 24 different stations, over 700 members, and I’m grateful that I always find someone out there who can see the vision with me and is willing to participate,” Aguilar said. “I also think that encourages confidence, because when I show them how people are receiving it, whether they got a good laugh or shared it with their friends, the firefighters are more willing to participate the next time I ask them to do a video.”
