#CopChat – Wednesday September 10 – Topic

Wednesday night, 9PM ET / 6PM PT

Wednesday night, 9PM ET / 6PM PT

Content is what drives social media. Many people consider it so important that the term, “Content is king” has ruled the content marketing world. While I don’t subscribe to that (I believe that your message is actually king), I do consider content to be the oxygen supply for the king.

Content is really that important. 

Content can be created, then shared, re-shaped, re-used, re-distributed and re-purpose. You can curate content from other sources and share it with your audience. Great content will take on a life of its own and grow…just think about how many things go viral based on the content that is created.

Sometimes content ideas are planned, worked on and distributed through careful planing and strategy where you actually take the time to create the conversation. Other times, content ideas are dropped in your lap like a Christmas present.

This week just that type of content inspiration was given to all police agencies in the form of a domestic violence video courtesy of Ray Rice and his at the time girlfriend. Many people knew about the event that occurred last February but didn’t know the degree of what had happened until TMZ Sports obtained extended footage of the event.

Two crowd generated hashtags arose very quickly and have trended for two days on Twitter, #WhyIStayed #WhyILeft.

What a golden opportunity to insert yourself into a conversation by offering resources, facts, statistics and answers for an audience that was talking about the issues. If you don’t think there were people from your communities watching those conversations looking for help you’re crazy.

Tonight on #CopChat we’ll discuss content opportunities like this one. How to insert yourself, how to recognize them and how to be there for your vulnerable communities and beyond.

I hope you can join us at 9PM ET / 6PM PT.

What are the #CopChat “rules”?

There are no ‘rules’ but we want this to be a good experience for everyone so here are some ideas to help.

  1. The first ‘rule’ of #CopChat is we talk about #CopChat. This isn’t FightClub, we have nothing to hide.

  2. If you have a blog, website or social channel that you want to share, please do so at the beginning…but we’ll ask that you don’t do any selling of products or services.  This chat is for discussion not sales. If you would like to sponsor a chat or promote your product, email me. ( timburrows1266@gmail.com )

  3. There is no insulting, bullying or swearing.  If someone says something that you don’t agree with, respectfully say so and have a discussion.  That is what this is all about…learning and sharing.

  4. If a subject presents itself that you may have written a piece for feel free to share at the end of the chat using the hashtag. Depending on the speed of the chat it could get lost in the stream during the middle of it and you’re less likely to get clicks during the chat.

  5. If someone tweets something that you feel compelled to RT, do it! But, make it even better by adding your own flavour to it, or conversely, if you disagree, say so and provide the reason why.

  6. If someone disagrees with your position take the criticism professionally…no twitter fights.  It won’t serve anyone with any value.  Take it out of the chat and have your fight without the hashtag.  No one wants to see children fight…we want to see adults chat.

  7. Finally…no tweet longer apps.  Keep it under 140, no one wants to be clicking links to see the rest of your tweet. It will take people out of the conversation and probably get ignored anyways.

  8. Abuse – if you choose to abuse the forum you will be blocked / muted and really what will that accomplish. We are all here to learn from each other. If you don’t like the police then say so respectfully…who knows, you might have a valid point but if it’s expressed poorly, no one will ever learn from it.

How to follow along.

Naturally, the easiest way is by using the hashtag… #CopChat

Using a dashboard platform like You will want to use TweetDeck / Hootsuite / TweetChat / Twubs etc, to follow the #CopChat.  You may also want create streams to follow @t_burrows and who ever may be co-hosting. Make sure you watch your own mentions stream so you don’t miss anything someone says to you.

About Tim Burrows

Tim Burrows was a sworn police officer for 25 years with experience in front line operations, primary response, traffic, detective operations and supervision. He has training in a broad spectrum of policing responsibilities including, IMS, Emergency Management, computer assisted technology investigations, leadership, community policing and crisis communications. Tim is available to assist you with your social media program and communication. Click here to contact him http://bit.ly/ContactTimBurrows
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