The Social Media Beat

Perhaps you saw this tweet on Wednesday, April 17th:   Despite reports to the contrary there has not been an arrest in the Marathon attack. @Boston_Police To their credit, despite trying to manage a chaotic week in their city, Boston Police were on top of monitoring social media. The agency was able to quickly jump on Twitter and renounce misinformation. Perhaps you also saw a tweet like this coming shortly afterwards: #CNN is reporting that#letsgetitright has won the 2013 Kentucky Derby! You heard it here first. @The_LifeofRiley  (tweeted 4-18, two weeks before the Derby) It's funny to read but addresses a very real and serious issue we in law enforcement need to confront in this day of instant, fragmented release of news. It may not be factual. It was very reassuring to read in an article posted April 18th on examiner.com: Follow the Boston Police Department on Twitter @Boston_Police and the FBI @FBIPressoffice for the most accurate information on the Boston Marathon bombings ...

Read the rest of entry »

Know anyone who always seems to talk about the same ‘ole thing? And have you ever avoided that person because that’s not what you felt like discussing? How about a politician who only promotes one issue, so when other issues are discussed, that politician is irrelevant? The constituents eventually feel cheated and that politician doesn’t last long in office. Most of us have a variety of topics we’re interested in that we appreciate hearing and talking about. As police agencies, we are experts in public safety. That’s our mission and that is our message. But let’s face it – public safety is not always what everyone wants to hear about. Crime and posts of suspect photos and road closures can begin to look pretty gloomy. A lot of law enforcement Facebook pages have a great variety of content! But there are still quite a number that also look and read like a blotter and a jail roster. Not that crime and booking photos are bad, but with social media, there’s a tri ...

Read the rest of entry »

Okay, not really stolen, but borrowed with the best of intentions. If you’re not using TrafficSafetyMarketing.gov, you’re missing out on a fantastic resource for free, relevant, timely social media content. Most importantly, the site gives us professionally done traffic safety information that complements our own enforcement and ties even a small local agency into current national traffic safety campaigns. NHTSA seems to be putting even more effort and resources into this site for the benefit of local law enforcement messaging. As NHTSA describes on their own site: Welcome to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration communications resource for States, partner organizations, and highway safety professionals. This is our one-stop-shop for the latest communications news, campaign materials, and marketing techniques. The site includes a variety of media, including Internet banner ads (that could also be Facebook cover photos), fact sheets, flyers, and pamphlets in both English ...

Read the rest of entry »

Scrolling down the news feed on my personal Facebook page last night, I saw a post from a friend who works for a police agency in Alaska. She had shared a post on the death this week of Nassau County, New York, Police Officer Arthur Lopez tragically and senselessly killed in the line of duty. I read her post shortly after I’d read the latest update on two deputies from our neighboring Canyon County, Idaho who’d been shot the night before attempting to serve a warrant. One deputy remains in a Boise hospital in critical condition as of this writing. On the Boise Police Facebook page, I shared a link to the latest news update on our local deputies, noting all involved were in our thoughts and prayers for healing. We had many citizens post supporting comments. Then one woman’s post asked, “What can we do to help?” That’s a really good question. What can we, who work in social media for law enforcement agencies do to support officer safety? I think about this all the time ...

Read the rest of entry »

You’ve heard the saying, “You create your own luck.” Tampa Police Department (TPD) spent months training and planning, on paper and in the field, for an event held once every four years and historically marked by conflict – a national political convention. In Tampa, however, the event was peaceful. I know. I had the good fortune to be there and learn from TPD’s experience with the RNC. At the upcoming IACP Conference in San Diego, you can too. The Public Information Officers Section is fortunate to have a presentation planned by the Tampa Police Public Information Officer, Laura McElroy. Communications strategies used by TPD externally, with the public, and media during the RNC, carried the same message the department used to train officers who would be face-to-face with sometimes angry, unpredictable demonstrators – individual contacts should be handled with respect, maintaining dignity and demonstrators rights to free speech, while balancing the need for officer, ...

Read the rest of entry »

It’s been said, “News breaks on Twitter." But what if the ‘news’ is wrong? It was last Saturday morning. The first Saturday in several weeks I wasn’t out of town or at a family function. Because I was playing with sprinklers and digging in the yard, I missed an early morning text notification. A couple hours later, I looked at my phone screen and saw a series of tweets that had started about 8:30 a.m. The tweet said: @BoisePD Is it true a teenage child w/Autism was found in Boise & unable to provide info on parents, home address & you are asking for help? Because I’d missed the notification from my phone and hadn’t responded, the individual decided to tweet: Urgent child w/autism by the name "Raymond" been found by @BoisePD. Call (208) XXX-XXXX if you know where his parents are. Pls RT #autism Within the next few minutes, about a dozen others had retweeted the “urgent” news and plea for help that appeared to have come from the depart ...

Read the rest of entry »

I’m going to start with something that you may have read recently: “Transparency does not involve divulging privileged information. Instead, being transparent means empowering citizens with information so they can understand, appreciate, and trust their police agency and staff to do the right thing for all citizens in their community.” If that sounds familiar, it’s because our resident “chief” blogger, Chief Billy Grogan of Dunwoody, Georgia wrote it in his blog post published last week. The chief, as usual, had a very insightful message about the evolution of the law enforcement profession from an inward to an external focus on public communication, cooperation, and building partnerships to enhance public safety and support police operations. The chief went on to explain how the evolution of social networking now allows police agencies to communicate with the communities and citizens they serve as never before. He’s right on, and how to do that more effectively ...

Read the rest of entry »

June 1st was National Doughnut Day. As a blogger and reader of blogs on this site, I read the piece from Officer Mike McCoy of Houston PD a few weeks ago on the power of using humor - appropriate humor - as an effective way to humanize our agencies through our social media outreach. Officer McCoy is a master at this and I've enjoyed and appreciated his humorous posts for HPD.   In his guest blog, Officer McCoy gave us a heads up about National Doughnut Day, and the suggestion to consider using the age-old stereotype of cops and doughnuts to poke a little good fun at ourselves, build goodwill, and have fun with our Facebook friends. In anticipation, a few days before National Doughnut Day, I googled some images, found a fun one from The Simpson's TV show and planned to post it June 1st. I never used it. Sadly, two days before, one of our officers was forced into a shooting with a suspect. The suspect died. No officers or other citizens were injured. However, when an officer is forced to use d ...

Read the rest of entry »

If you "like" a number of police agencies on Facebook, which I do as the administrator of the Boise Police Facebook page, almost invariably, every day some agency has updated their "cover photo." If you use Facebook, you know the new layout allows admins to place a nice large cover photo to welcome and introduce folks to our page. And what do I see most often as cover photos for police agencies? Cars, trucks and buildings. Sometimes the car is armored. Lots of logos and badges. All very fine images. But where are our PEOPLE? The amazingly useful thing about social networks for police agencies is the ability to share the very human stories that come out of our public service. Yes, all those stories our local media will never cover but illustrate the very human interaction our members have numerous times daily with citizens from all walks of life, from emergencies to education, courts to classrooms. How 'bout we use those images to welcome citizens to one of law enforcement's most valuable social me ...

Read the rest of entry »

Recently, an Idaho State agency chose to shut down its Facebook page. Managers said the page was taking too much time and employee resources. The problem wasn't too many issues - just one. The agency found its Facebook page had become a venting opportunity for citizens with strong opinions about an ongoing, emotional and controversial topic, and it overwhelmed the agency's ability to manage the page. An Idaho state legislator also ran into something similar when he introduced a controversial bill that attracted national news attention, prompting activists from around the world to inundate his page with a huge number of mainly negative comments. So what if an agency's Facebook page gets overwhelmed by hundreds or thousands of comments, passionate over a single issue? The topic was brought up recently among those of us who manage Facebook pages here in the City of Boise. One of my city colleagues had met a PIO at a recent training conference who had faced the situation and managed it without deactivat ...

Read the rest of entry »