Police Community Support Officers: Twitter best practice

Twitter Best Practice by PCSO’s
This online presentation highlights the best
examples of Twitter use by PCSO’s. It is draws on
online research which looked at 18 different user
profiles across 12 police forces

Presentation by Gavin Barker

About me
 Background in the public and charity
sector with roles including

Contact details
Website:
http://compasstraininguk.org/
Email: gavinbark@gmail.com
Mobile: 0750 890 7171

⁻ community engagement with refugee and
local resident communities
₋ Mediation and bridge building in community
conflict situations
₋ Policy research
₋ Social media and web project management

 Current role
₋ Online research on use of social media by
public and private organisations
₋ Social media consultancy for small businesses
₋ online diagnostics for individuals and
organisations in their use of twitter which
includes key metrics and suggestions for
improvement


We look at three broad areas of twitter activity by PCSO’s

Who I am and
what I do

Building relationships with
the wider community
Information about who you
are, what you do, who you
work for

Raising awareness
Key messages,
Crime prevention
timely reminders,
and education
links to more
detailed information

Promoting safer
neighbourhoods

Tackling crime & antisocial behaviour
Re-assuring the
public with live
updates, bulletins,
as well as
crowdsourcing
information


Who you are and what you do
Twitter profiles and tweets:
best examples


WHO YOU ARE & WHAT YOU DO: KEY FINDINGS
Best practice

Areas of weakness

• Who you are and what you do begins •
with your Twitter profile and the
best profiles used pictures of people
to convey personal relationship and
local connection rather than a strictly
corporate identity
• The use of humour and banter
played an important role in building
positive relationships with a wider
•
public
• Twitter as a police recruitment tool
also allowed a wider public to get a
more in-depth understanding of
police work and what it involves.

An inconsistent use of hashtags. Some
were irrelevant to the subject matter
of tweets. Other hashtags were
simply too broad a category to be
useful to the viewer. Even #police is
less useful than it appears because it
groups conversations from all over
the world – police authorities in
North America, India, Dubai and
Australia. #ukpolice might be a better
option.
Other hashtags such as
#workingtogether and #committed
(which brings in conversations from
sports to civil partnerships) suffered
the same diffuse spread of
conversations with no common
theme

A picture rather than a logo makes for a
stronger personal profile
A picture of PCSO’s in
the neighbourhood
conveys a stronger
sense of social
connection and
relationship

Police brand forms part
of the background rather
than the central focus

Profiles are the first thing a potential
follower sees. Profiles that promote local
or social connection rather than brand,
play to the strengths of social media.

Showing the face behind the uniform
The header image
captures social
interaction – a
policeman talking and
smiling to a member of
the public. It promotes
positive sentiment and
sets the ‘tone’ for the
kind of relationship a
PCSO seeks to build

Link to website uses a bit.ly url which
measures the number of times people
click on the link


Using a local landmark that everyone knows of
Background picture uses a
local landmark that everyone
identifies with
Landmarks such as bridges,
rivers, iconic buildings are
part of the emotional
landscape of local people

This particular picture is of the River Tamar and
bridge, a well known landmark which marks
the dividing line between Cornwall and the rest
of England

Landmarks convey a sense of place, of
community

The profile header image
also includes key headline
information


Adopting a personal, conversational tone ….
The tone is
conversational

Gardening…

….allows personality to show through and
helps build a relationship with the wider
community

The weather…

A sons 7th
Birthday….

Humour and stories that give an inside view
Whether it is a
chance
encounter with
colleagues old
and new

Or the pain of a
dislocated knee


Twitter as a recruiting tool also gives an inside view
Recruitment event for Special
Constables includes use of
Twitter for online Q&A. It
achieves two things
• It gives an inside view of
the role of special
constables
• It encourages recruitment
of those with social media
skills


Burnt out van,
Hackney, riots
2011
Photo by Alastair

PROMOTING SAFER
NEIGHBOURHOODS

KEY FINDINGS
Best practice

• A strategic use of twitter to structure
information in 3 ways: ‘what I will do
and where’, ‘what’s happening’, endof-shift feedback
• Judicious use of hashtags particularly
place names that form part of a
PCSO’s patch, example #grindleford
#seaford
• Good use of images to drive home
messages
• Twitter for civil emergencies – a new
service being rolled out in the UK
• Sharing local news to foster a sense
of community connection

Areas for weakness
•

•

•

Over liberal use of hashtags such as
#wetakesecurity #alwayshelping that
pulls in unrelated content from all
over the world
Use of twitter restricted to relentless
sharing of crime updates and requests
for public help can, over time, foster
negative social sentiment – the
feeling that people are living in a
crime-prone area
There was almost a complete absence
of reference to on online conflict,
cyber-bullying and other forms of anti
social behaviour which may later play
out off-line

Live updates re-assure the public of a police
presence actively working on their behalf
• Tackling street drinkers
• moving on beggars
• reporting a lost dog
• Giving crime prevention
advice to an elderly
lady


Tweets that tell a story
some stories pack an emotional punch…

…and transform our
perception of the police: not
just a uniform but a mum

“I’m a mum and we
are never off duty”

Twitter as a crowdsourcing tool
Police work has always relied on the assistance of the public, but it is the ease,
speed and scale of public involvement afforded by tools such as Twitter that
transforms police work. It also enables the police to tap into local knowledge and
face-to-face social networks on a sustained and continuous basis.

Hashtags based on locality and neighbourhood are a vital but
often under-used tool in twitter armoury. They act as a cocreated community news stream

Using Twitter to drive face to face interaction
Tweets
advertising
surgery in gift
shop ‘share
your views’

Advertising neigbhourhood watch
meeting using hashtag to do so

Hashtag place names are often used
as a source of local news – and it
enables the police to connect with
people who don’t ‘follow’ you by Gavin Barker
Presentation

Sharing local news
Sharing local news through re-tweets
might seem on the periphery of a
policemen’s job to fight crime but it
performs an important function in two
ways:

• It promotes the PCSO as a key
social hub at the centre of news
and information of value and
interest to the local community
• It fosters a sense of community
spirit and helps build trust and
social capital between members
of a community.
The last point is critical: high levels of trust
and social capital reduces fear of crime and
promotes a greater willingness to report
crime when it happens

Promoting road safety

Twitter lends itself to short,
sharp key messages

With an image that
conveys a clear warning


Responding to anti-social behaviour
Not just sharing information
but showing a visible result


Twitter combined with
a neighbourhood
alert system

Lincolnshire alert is a free two way
community messaging system designed
to put you in touch with Lincolnshire
Police and Neighbourhood Watch
Neighbourhood alert – with a
clickable link to find more detailed
information

Twitter Alerts for civil emergencies
Twitter Alerts for disasters
and civil emergencies is a
new service being rolled
out in the UK
As of 18 November 013, Twitter
users will be able to register for
the service which aims to “get
critical information to the right
people at the right time”.
Users who opt-in to Twitter
Alerts, will receive tweets
marked with a small orange bell
for important alerts so as to stand
out from the user’s timeline. They
will also receive a text message
directly to their phones

Twitter strategy to structure information
updates
This example shows a good
use of Twitter to:
Map out the days activities:
-what I will do
-where I will be
Drive face to face interaction:
‘I will be in the High Street,
Bugbrooke, come and talk to
me’
Report back on the days
events
‘have spoken to lots of
residents’ ‘school parking
patrol’


No news is good news that also deserves a
mention
No news is good
news: no issues to
report
Quite often the instinct is to
find something to report or
tweet, but sometimes the
best messages are one of reassurance.
No crimes or reports of anti
social behaviour can be vital
to counter balance the fear
of crime that haunts so many
communities

CRIME PREVENTION AND
COMMUNITY EDUCATION

Key findings
Best practice
• Headline information
combined with strong
images or links to more
detailed information
• Using crime updates to re –
inforce crime prevention
messages
• The use of social events to
promote key messages

Areas for improvement
• use of hashtags of overlong
hashtags of limited
effectiveness e.g.
#nostreetdrinkingplease
• Limited use of platforms
such as bit.ly to measure
engagement e.g. number of
clicks on tweets


Cautionary messages for a Friday night
Key timely message
tweeted early on a Friday
evening……
…combined with a
strong image…

Maximises the impact
of what you want to say


Messages well timed
Another cautionary tweet with clear,
practical advice in case of emergency

Timing is everything ! Sent early
Friday evening

Well timed tweets that are pithy and to the point

Combined with a
powerful picture

And tweeted early
Friday evening

using crime updates to promote crime prevention
Using live examples makes it real. It enhances the
impact of key messages on crime prevention

Maybe could have also included a twitpic
on home safety and a #southHeighton
hashtag


Live Q&A using twitter hashtag and video
• questions were routed to their
website which combined live
Q&A with video
• Live Q&A moderated –
questions checked before
being read out on video
• A video broadcast is more
immediate and does not
confine answers to 140
characters

#bhburglary week with Brighton
and Hove

Note: limit to moderation using
twitter given that anyone can say
anything and append the hashtag –
but very good approach nevertheless

!

#hashtag live Q&A but no Twitter share
icon – just Facebook?

Twitter live Q & A using a hashtag
• #bhburglaryweek – bh
stands for Brighton and
Hove
• Anyone tweeting a question
using that hashtag will see
their question appear in the
twitter stream
• Hashtags are a great way of
capturing useful crime
prevention information


Using social events to promote key messages
Devon and Cornwall police designed and project
managed a social event built around key community
safety messages

The theme of road safety was
central to the design of a Biker event
and competition which was
sponsored by local businesses
interested in gaining new customers
Could the same approach be applied to
social events/ road shows that combined:
-Home improvements with home safety?
-car care product shows with crime
prevention?
-IT roadshows with awareness around
cyberbullying?

Using bit.ly to measure engagement
Live Q & A with Twitter hashtag includes the
use of bit.ly to measure engagement

bit.ly allows you to
measure the number of
clicks on a link

It also tells you which
platform was used to
click on that link

End of presentation
I hope you
found this
useful
Contact details
Website:
http://compasstraininguk.org/
Email: gavinbark@gmail.com
Mobile: 0750 890 7171

This is a free resource
so please download
and share with
colleagues.
Please given feedback on points
not covered and how I can
improve on this

For a consultation and assessment in your
current use of twitter, along with key metrics
for your Twitter account, please contact me

Police Community Support Officers: Twitter best practice

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Police Community Support Officers: Twitter best practice