I am often asked by new users of social media questions along the lines of, “What should I say? What’s ok to share from non-police organizations? Should we be sharing information from other police agencies?” and others similarly based questions.
Those types of questions all point to one thing; CONTENT.
It has been said many times that “Content is King” in social media. But, let’s face it, not all content is worth sharing or in some cases, has no business being populated to the social space or anywhere else for that matter. So it’s not just content that is king, it’s great content or content of value to the end-user (your followers, subscribers, friends, etc).
The hardest part of content is without a doubt the creation of it. It’s time consuming, demands resources and creativity. So, curate content which simply put is, finding content that is of high value to your users, which will also be great content.
Content that is great for policing can come in many forms from many places. Traffic safety information, crime prevention information, crime awareness dissemination, are a few really easy things to find and or create.
But, one of my favourite things to use, which is great content and can have a huge impact and incredible value to your end-user (remember, that is who you are doing social media for), are positive social causes. Those are causes that are moving towards a better community by standing up for the things that are just right to do that have either been ignored, forgotten, over-shadowed or simply their need is getting bigger and bigger.
Agree or disagree with it, “KONY2012” is one of those causes. Election reform is one of those causes. Awareness for Autism is one of those causes. The list goes on and on. Some causes might not be right for police to support publicly while others have a win-win effect for our communities and us.
Bullying
Anti-Bullying is one of those causes that is a win-win for us to get behind and support. Think about it; bullying, whether it is in the digital realm or real life on its face is not a policing issue. Name calling, picking on someone, pestering can all be considered a “part of life”. They are parental, school, individual and societal issues that through the years have been with us. But when those bullying events turn into harassment, libel, slander, threats or violence, they become a very serious police issue. So supporting the cause of anti-bullying is a great thing for us to get behind.
The social media space has an incredible capacity for us to use for gathering content that has been created, creating our own content and to convey the anti-bullying message. Here are a few examples that you can search to find great content: (Use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blog search tools for any of these topics)
- The Bully Movie
- #NoMoreBullies
- #Bullying
- Pink Shirt Day
It’s very easy to share the information you find on any of those terms and the content that you will find is incredible. Real life stories, flash dance mobs, research papers, experts and experience will all be there.
Here are examples of what a couple of police agencies / officers have done.
Guelph Police Service Facebook
Guelph Police – Anti Bullying Strategy
Toronto Police – Pink Shirt Day Album
Theses are a couple of examples and I have seen many, many more from services, officers, celebrities and the community that are taking a stand against bullying.
This is just one topic though. Just think of all the content that is available already created that you can use in your efforts.
Social media makes it so easy to share the originality of others, the concepts and the messages of so many. Share, like, comment, ReTweet, Quote, +1 buttons are all there for a reason…to spread the content.
Sometimes you may have to reach out and ask permission when there are copyright issues or the provider did not intend for mass distribution of their content, so you might have to take an extra step or two, but that only adds to your credibility and may protect you from infringement of others rights.
Do you have a great cause you want to share? Here is a tip…do it!! Ask for others to share it, tag people (not in a spammy way), reach out, connect. Ask if anyone has any information or has run a program on a specific cause or topic.
“Just do it”~Courtesy of Nike. (see that’s a share with credit going to the original content creator 😉
