Social Media as means ofcommunication for lawenforcement agenciesMajor Cities of Europe - Workshop "Social Media and Apps", 21 st of March 12

Speaker

Adj Michael WirzDeputy Chief Information Officer

Zurich City Police

Student of Business Communications

University of Applied Sciences in Business Administration Zurich

Zurich and its police

� Cultural and economic center of Switzerland

� 380,000 inhabitants

� 2,093 employees (1,600 sworn)

� 60,000 emergency calls per year

� Up to 300 missions per day

Situation November 2011

� Social Media: Society and media are changing. Thishas a major impact on Public Relations.

� 20% of the citizens of Zurich use Social Media regularly. The police did not.

� Social Media are a big issue for most Swiss policecorps, but none of them had a Social Media strategyyet.

"Wake-up call" in summer 2008

� A 17-years old invited people to a "Botellón", an organized binge, via Facebook

� Public authorities did not know about it until conventional media covered the story.

� The "Botellón" caused costs of more than 150‘000 €

Fact is

The question is not whether, but how to integrate Social Media in police work, as Social Media have already become a mass phenomenon and a public area of life for many citizens – including our own employees.

Strategy?

Social Media are trendy, cool, free to use and very easy, however it is very important to use them strategically and not just to use it for the sake of it.

Purpose of the strategy

Developing a Social Media strategy and policy for the Zurich City Police that …

� … meets not only the needs of the corps, but also the interests of the online community.

� … complies with a strict legal framework.

� … takes existing concepts into account.

How to?

Why are the interests of the community important?

Unlike conventional mass media (e.g. TV), the online community only absorbs INTERESTING and RELEVANT content.

Should the police use Social Media as a communication/information tool?

Yes, absolutely

41%

Rather yes39%

Rather no12%

Absolutely not3%

I don‘t know5%

Survey: key findings

� Different channels – different stakeholders (demographic)

� Currently, only Facebook, Twitter and blogs/forums reach more than 15% of the community

� Clear consent of the community

� Facebook ist the most used channel

� Twitter is the most desired platform to communicate with the police

� Conventional communication channels (e.g. e-mail) are still very important

Objectives of Social Media

Any Social Media activity must pursue at least one ofthe following goals:

1. Warning/information

2. Improve relationships with stakeholders (CP)

3. Prevention (crime / accidents)

4. Public search for missing / witnesses / delinquents

5. Improve the image of the force

6. Recruitment

Organization/Procedures

� Social Media center of excellence (affiliated to the communications department)

� Explicit permission to staff to use Social Media (e.g. human resources)

� All activities must be approved and coordinated by the center of excellence

� Continuous training and guidance

� Binding guidelines (for duty AND off-duty use)

Its all about trust!

There are issues (copyright, using images of people with permission, deleting offensive posts etc.) that staff need to know about. Beyond that we should trust them to engage with the public online, as we already do offline.

“We trust them with guns, fast cars and physical restraints… but not computers?” (Justin Partridge, Lincolnshire Police)

Conclusion

There are many risks and hazards lurking in the internet to be considered.

However, if the police succeed in establishing authentic, credible ambassadors to the new world, opportunities will emerge – not just for the Public Relations departments, but also for operational policing at the front.

Further reading

http://www.iacpsocialmedia.org/

Center for Social Media of the IACP

http://www.ConnectedCOPS.net

Blogs, information, studies

http://cops2point0.com

Usefull information

Background:

Gillin, P. (2009). The New Influencers. South Mary, California: Quill Driver Books.

Figures:

Burson-Marsteller. (2011). The Global Social Media Check-up