It’s been said that social media “amplifies” whatever an organization’s values are. If a company is all about pushy sales, so will be its social efforts. If it seeks long-term customer loyalty based on relationships, its social efforts will reflect that too. Likewise among police departments. An agency that respects its citizens enough to communicate…
Tag Archive: Social media policy
A starting point for professional officer development: LinkedIn
My last few posts have talked about the differences among personal, professional, and official police presences on the social Web; the need for goals and boundaries; and a little about knowing what the tools are for. I want to focus on one of those tools, in part because it is a good start for officers…
The cost of transparency
Those of us who applaud organizational use of social media talk a lot about “transparency.” A company or government agency that allows its employees to blog or tweet, under their own names, about their lives and jobs is said to make us trust them more. It’s humans caring about what other humans experience. What could…
Just how high does the standard need to be?
Thinking about the Bozeman officer who resigned over his Facebook status updates made me think: What, exactly, do we civilians expect from our police officers? Because I’ve heard comments along the same lines from dozens of other cops. Civilians, too. Take this one from one of my own Facebook friends: “….I suffer fools not at…
Guest post: The social media officer
When Mike Vallez launched his social media blog a few weeks ago, I was struck by a comment he made in one of his first posts: “I would venture to guess that in the future you will have a social media police officer or many social media police officers that will be involved in “the…
Transparency vs. anonymity
An interesting debate has cropped up over on ConnectedCops.net about whether police officers should be allowed to blog anonymously. It started with Lauri’s point in her post on elements of a social media policy (cross posted here and on her blog): 3. Identity. Some bloggers work anonymously, using pseudonyms or false screen names. Law enforcement…