First Global Police Tweetathon
Read all about the first global police tweetathon and follow almost 200 police forces tweeting live from around the world. You can see the #POLTWT hashtag stream live on the post.
New president of Police Superintendents’ Association @barrackslass on why she tweets
Irene Curtis is newly elected President of the Police Superintendents’ Association of England and Wales Tweets by @barrackslass Twitter as police scanner Twitter is so many things for me. It’s an opportunity to be me, to have serious debate or a laugh, to share the silliest of experiences, and also the most serious of […]
How social media can take some of the friction out of Stop and Search
Stop and Search Stop and search has always been a controversial issue in British policing and a point of friction between police and, in particular, the Black and Minority Ethnic communities they serve. Indeed several commentators cited it as a potential contributory factor to the 2011 riots. Last week the Young Foundation published an interesting report on […]
What’s the best way to deal with trolls?
What’s a troll? If you’re online long enough, especially if you actually voice your own opinion, you will eventually attract the attention of a Troll or two. People who have different definitions of what constitutes a Troll. For me, it’s people who don’t engage in any sort of debate but just repeat the same simplistic […]
Twitter is the local pub, the street corner, the groves of academe… @PrisonerBen on why he tweets
Twitter. 140 meaningful characters. Daft idea…. Having fought a brutal battle to be allowed to blog from prison and watching the media develop, one of the few conscious decisions I made on release was to embrace the possibilities of digital communication with all the vigour of a randy Alsatian. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, the blog, all sprang to life fairly quickly and with astonishingly little thought. But the idea of compressing anything meaningful into 140 characters seemed utterly absurd. All the more so given that my writing style can veer unexpectedly into the flowery and verbose. And yet it seemed a challenge worthy of rising to.
Police and Social Media – where next?
This is the last in a series of posts based on the recent COMPOSITE report on police use of social media across Europe. One of the interesting realisations I’ve made in writing these posts is the constant evidence of how British police are leading the way in Europe in their adoption and effective use of social media. Mike Downes keeps a watching brief on UK police use of social media and found that between January and February this year, there was more than a 10% increase in the numbers of people following police Twitter accounts bring the total number of followers to 1,041,850.
Mark Walsh @hantspcmark tweets from the beat
10 years ago we may turn up and deal with an incident and if anyone enquired what was going on we may have responded in a very firm, closed off manner: “Nothing to see here – move along”. These days, where we can and subject to operational requirements, we would tweet about it, sometimes as it happens. Conversations are always taking place and we feel its only right we be involved to ensure people are kept update with the right information.
Police Social media engages communities and cuts costs
This is the ninth in a series of posts based on the recent COMPOSITE report on police use of social media across Europe. Using social media to cut the cost of communication The COMPOSITE study was undertaken over the last two years where most of Europe’s police forces were having to cope with reduced budgets owing […]
Make your Tweets stand out from the crowd with Twitter Cards
Twitter is getting busier all the while – there are 175 million tweets on an average day. So how do you make your tweets stand out from the crowd?
Visual impact is increasingly important. Twitter cards are a free function provided by Twitter itself. They automatically embed extracts of a post, photo, video etc – provided the tweet is viewed via an official Twitter client (not a third party client like Hootsuite or Echofon). The key to the process is that word “automatically”.
Probation Chief @A_cossins uses Twitter to be entertained, informed, amused and supported
Angela Cossins is Chief Executive of Cheshire Probation Trust and Resettlement Lead for the Probation Chief’s Association. Tweets by @a_cossins Getting started Anyone who knows me would be surprised that I didn’t get into twitter earlier than I did. I love to know what’s going on; meet new people, “network”, debate and exchange ideas. […]
Social media is critical to police IT systems dealing with newsworthy issues
This is the eighth in a series of posts based on the recent COMPOSITE report on police use of social media across Europe. Hold the front page Crime has always been front page news. Always sold newspapers. The advent of TV – remember the real time coverage of OJ Simpson’s arrest – accelerated the speed […]
PC Kate Parker tweets to share her working day with the public
PC Kate Parker is a Neighbourhood Policing Officer for Conwy, North Wales Tweets by @NWPKateParker Twitter for open dialogue A big part of my role as a Police Officer is communication. It is vital that we maintain an open dialogue with the public, whether that be walking down the street and talking face to face […]
