Law Enforcement doesn’t need Social Media

If you know anything about me, you know that I really don’t mean that, but I got your attention didn’t I!!

For the past 30 months I have both professionally and personally made a study of the use of Social Media.  As a law enforcement officer that looks for ways to communicate community and road safety, Social Media was a logical choice as a tool to effectively and efficiently talk to my community.

I learned very quickly that some platforms were great for spreading the safety messages I needed to push out in an unedited, rich and convenient manner.  Others, did nothing to advance those messages.

As I have studied, used and evaluated those tools and the volume that can be created through them, I started to realize what their use truly is.

When I started out I found the term interesting at its core.

Social is the engagement, conversations, networks and people.  Long before Social Media became the term of reference we would consider the people on the networks the kids in their parents basements talking in chat rooms or conspiracy theorist trying to debunk government accounts and those people that viewed the ‘establishment’ as evil and something to be ignored, if not feared.

Media is many things. It can be the platform for communication, the mainstream media or the medium in which you present your topic.  When you look at it in terms of the mainstream media, the two terms would never seem to be bedfellows. Social and Media? Not ever would the two combine so nicely before now.

Lets start at the beginning; after all, it’s a very nice place to start.  Stop talking about Social Media and start talking about what it really is.  Tools to COMMUNICATE!  Want to know about the irrelevance of Social Media, take a read of Why Social Media Doesn’t Matter Anymore…but only after you finish reading this article.

If you are having trouble convincing your agency that they should be talking with your community through the platforms of Social Media and your argument is falling on deaf ears change language to something that doesn’t seem so scary.

Your strategy is not to venture into and use the muddied waters of Social Media.  Your strategy is to communicate.  Don’t create a Social Media strategy.  Create a Communications Strategy that considers the uses of layers of tools that can effectively convey your message to as many people as possible.

You can’t use terminology specific names like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.  As much as it makes my heart stop to say Twitter might not exist in two years, the reality is that the next great tool to communicate could very easily replace it.

And here is my bonus tip of the day: Your messages should always convey three strategies.

1. Marketing
2. Sales
3. Branding

That’s right…very successful businesses use those three strategies all the time and so should law enforcement.

Comments, like it, hate it? Let me know leave a comment and engage in the communication.