The Social Media Beat

A lot of discussions focus on how to engage through social media. We've discussed how to make tweets relevant, how to interact with your constituents, how to tweet in 140 characters and so on. Another way, which is just as important, is to include a visual medium. Videos and pictures add life to a story and help your followers better understand what your agency does. There is a reason that YouTube has exceeded 2 billion views a day. Facebook has also made it easy to post videos and pictures. Dashboards like TweetDeck, and just about every site on the Internet now allows video sharing. Just like everything, it does take resources, but depending on what message you want to deliver you might be able to do it with existing personnel. So what are some ways to engage through pictures and video? It can be from the simple, to the more complicated. Let's start with simple. We post our daily blotter on our Web site and recently started adding mug shots to cases where there was an arrest. People love seeing mug shots ...

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Dionne's post got me thinking about the further benefits of sharing insight about your department, particularly recruitment and training efforts. While such activities are a great way to educate and engage with the community, they can also pay dividends in your hiring efforts. You never know, your next recruit might be reading that blog. Blogs are free to set up. Blogger, LiveJournal, and WordPress are popular providers. Sites are ready-made with customizable templates and color schemes. Minimal techno-savvy is required. For fact sheets and case studies on blogging for law enforcement, check out the IACP Center for Social Media. Following new recruits through a blog is a tactic several departments are using. Lincoln, Nebraska is a good one. Oklahoma City is another. See also the IACP's case study on the Houston Police Department's success blogging for recruitment. Virginia State Police, as Dionne noted, offers another fine example. What's unique about VSP is that they're blogging through Facebook, u ...

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So you've finally decided to take the plunge into social media and it' going well. Now what? It's important once you know what you're doing and feel relatively confident, that you think about what's next. What are your goals now that you've started using social media? What new things do you want to try? What do you want to change about what you're currently doing? Think about what you've learned so far. Do certain items draw more positive interest and comments than others? Sure, there are certain items that you'll always want to post online, but what new items can you post to draw people's interest? One thing we at Richmond Police started doing just this past week was to post photos and information about our new recruit class. What are they learning and why is it important? It takes our citizens inside the Department both to meet their soon-to-be officers AND to know more about how we train. It also humanizes the Department since sometimes people forget that officers are people too. This also enco ...

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I have written for most of my professional career. I even minored in broadcast script writing in college. Every day, for 15 years, I had to take some facts and turn them into a 90 second story for the news that evening. I once told students that broadcast news is like creative writing, you need to take the facts and make them tantalizing (TV term) for the viewer. Well take it from me, writing something in 140 characters or less is a lot harder! In fact, these last two sentences already reached that po (...int, see already ran of characters.) The point is, being able to express yourself or deliver your department's message clearly and forcefully is no small feat. So many times I see police agencies on Twitter posting in police talk or a cut and paste from a log. For the reader, that is unappealing and not conversational. When it comes to Twitter, the message needs to be short, but it needs to also be meaningful. One of the things I try to accomplish in my tweets is not using all 140 characters. Why? ...

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A couple things happened this week on the Boise PD social network sites that started the new year off right. The first shows the value of interacting with citizens via social networking; the second illustrates how that interaction can lead to something we don't hear often enough in law enforcement (or anywhere, for that matter!) - thank you. Boise PD has chosen to make the commitment and engage, when possible and appropriate, with the citizens who chose to engage us via social networking. What that means is, as PIO, I have activated my mobile alert settings for Twitter so anytime someone mentions or direct messages @BoisePD, I get a notification on my cell. We also check our Facebook comments regularly and again, when appropriate, respond. Last week, I heard the notification and found a citizen had sent us a question via Twitter asking "@Boisepd what is going on up Gary lane by Riverglen Jr High?? There have been a ton of officers over here". A quick phone call provided the answer and I fired off a repl ...

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I get asked all the time, "How much time will this take?" or "I don't have the resources/manpower to do social media." Depending on what you want to achieve, you might already have the resources available. More than likely you can do it with your existing personnel. But if you are getting into social media you have to stick with it, you cannot create a page and then forget about it. Social media is very much a two way street, in that your followers or friends expect someone on the other end of the keyboard. This is not a bad thing; we are putting a person on the other end. Most people who ask questions or respond via social media don't expect to have someone write back. They have come to believe that their communications to law enforcement fall on deaf ears. It's amazing the positive feedback you get from the community when you start.

A new year has arrived, and with that comes the age-old activity of pledging to change in the upcoming twelve months. Hitting the gym, kicking a bad habit, or clearing out junk are typical tasks at the top of people's lists. But with the social media revolution upon us, we have outlined some social media resolutions for 2011. Whether you are just familiarizing yourself with these tools or are looking for new ways to be innovative, here are some potential resolutions for you. • Explore and Experiment - Whether it is video, QR codes, or something else, venture into the unknown and educate yourself. This doesn't mean to jump on every bandwagon that rolls by your front door. Just make sure you are keeping an eye out for what your agency can do next and making sure you are informed about what social media has to offer. Don't be afraid to try something new. It may not always work, but you also may stumble upon the next great thing. Your community and your agency will thank you. • Engage - ...

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