A few weeks ago I spoke to James Harper the Marketing Officer for the South Wales Police Force - specifically about their @swpolice Twitter account as well as their approach to social media in general. Below is a bit of a mixed bag of questions and answers from a really interesting 1hr we spent chatting!
Joel: How did South Wales Police get into social media & Twitter?James: Basically we have a National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) who looks for best practice across all the police forces. We've got 43 forces across England & Wales so there's lots of good work going on but it can be hard sometimes to capture that good work and to share it, and that's why it (the NPIA) is so useful. Joel: So, if one force can get a handle on social media then that makes it easierto sell to other forces then? (note 1)James: And there are some great examples [raised in case studies by the NPIA], there's a PC over in Harrogate Ed Rogerson and he's just become the most popular single police officer on Twitter. He was one of the first to embrace it and he uses it to say when he is on patrol, I'm doing this & that, I've looked into this issue etc. He does lots of filming as well so there's lots on youtube so he was a pioneer really. Who else is there? [thinks] West Midlands Police are very good, Gwent police use it quite a bit. But we (South Wales Police) looked at it and thought that there is an opportunity here to build our brand, to be far more friendly and be up to speed. Joel: So what do you see as 'The Brand' for South Wales Police?James: Well culturally everyone sees us very much as enforcement but policing has gone totally full circle. Yes we catch the bad guys, yes we'll arrest people, that's our core "business" but also a lot of time is spent meeting people, working with communities, solving low level issues (litter, criminal damage etc) which people don't often read about but it has a big impact on quality of life issues so we wanted to bring policing to life and show case what we were about. For large organisations it can be harder to portray that image so I wanted to really show what sort of things the Police do on a daily basis and also meet some of our staff as well, show a bit of personality of our force. Showing we are friendly and we do care and you can call us, you can send us a message on Twitter - it's all about responding and improving service.Joel: So what have you got up & running? There's Twitter...James: Yes, we've got @swpolice which is our "corporate twitter" (I hate that term!) that's the one myself and a few others from Corporate Communications run. We didn't want people to think that it's just marketing spin - the reason they put me in charge is that with my job I get to see a wide variety of things happening across the force day to day and I can pick some of these stories to communicate to the public.
We've got the @helicops Twitter all about our Police helicopter which has proved really popular as we get lots of calls saying things like "the helicopter is over my house, is there someone dangerous on the run?!" - the officers have found this a fantastic tool to communicate to the public. They've also found lots of intelligence coming through which is obviously great and to me that's such a simple and nice use of Twitter really.And there’s a twitter account run by our Chief Officers @Chiefs_SWP, which gives an insight into our leaders. Joel. Ok, that's Twitter. What about blogs or Facebook?James: Our Chief Constable has done internal blogs for staff. We do have a small presence on youtube swptv but it's quite restricted at the moment - it's not quite where I want it to be yet but it is improving.Joel: ..but you can't fight on all (social media) fronts at the same time.James: Yes, we're taking it on a staged approach really. We're getting to a point now where Twitter is working well. We have just set up a facebook page, which is being used to promote events for operation bang (an all wales campaign to keep people safe over halloween and bonfire night). Joel: How long have you been in charge of @SWPOLICE etc?James: We did a pilot back in November last year but it's only be properly live since May and it's quickly become one of our most effective communication channels.Joel. Why?James: I think the climate is changing in policing. There are no budgets for tv and radio advertising so we have to have low cost and maximum impact. In theory Twitter is free and we're finding at the moment that lots of young people are using the Twitter page and we get lots of questions about careers. Like last week I had 5 or 6 such queries based on the twitpics we'd put up and that would never happen in the past. So it's a changing environment which I think is fantastic. We are looking at the potential of working in collaboration with Northern Ireland Police as they are very good at Facebook but they don't do Twitter like us - so we can help each other learn.Joel: {I prattled on about Foursquare for a while}James: Well we'll consider any option because we know our communities are totally transforming. Yes we'll do all the traditional neighbourhood meetings etc and that's not going to go away but we've got to look for new ways to engage with the community, especially young people and the professional person - they're not going to see an officer patrolling the streets in the day whilst at work and they've got a family life and are too busy in the evenings so they need other options.Joel: Well, that's me definitely. I'm happy to tweet my concerns etc but ringingthe police (for small issues) would be too formal for me.James: Exactly. We have to give the public as many options as possible to communicate - some will want to pick up the phone; others may want to tweet. The days are gone where we say that come to a meeting as that's your only chance to air your concerns. No business would do that. And we're always looking at business best practice. Starbucks has a fantastic social media strategy where they get everything working together.Joel: ok, this sounds like it takes up quite a lot of your time - how do youhandle the return on investment question?James: Really good question! We review everything but we realise that the working day is really short so we've tried to build our Twitter process so that it is no extra time on my part. Saying that I'll get up in the middle of the night and think "oh! I'll send something out". We prepare reports and feedback for officers on what messages we've sent out, followers (aiming for a monthly increase), interaction (are people asking questions?), and number of retweets (I think this is gold dust).Joel: how do you promote your Twitter account outside of Twitter itself?James: Well the best example of late is from our Ryder Cup campaign where we're trying to combinenew with old. These posters/leaflets were displayed in hotels etc as part of a crime prevention campaign and, as you can see, they prominently display our Twitter address. And in Cardiff airport we've had a large wall display in arrivals which basically says "follow us on Twitter".Joel: Will there be actual Police on the beat tweeting in South Wales?James: At the moment officers update the ourbobby.com website, and we will be looking at what is the best approach for localised tweets etc, all part of a social media development process. What we do will be based on public demand and ensuring any process is efficient and effective for officers.Joel: Ah! so did these police officers receive instructions about what to say?James: All officers get a visit from me explaining about marketing and helping them to recogniseopportunities to capture some good news etc. I mean, they've all got their Blackberry's so they have the tools for the job. Our policy is that we trust them to go out on the beat and to talk to people so we trust them to talk to people on-line. In the coming months training on social media will be important.Joel: So I've seen that @swpolice is big on replying to tweets; do you usesearches though? Any reach out?James: Every week I'll do a scan for a variety of phrases - looking for opportunities for good news or to solve problems. It can be difficult as searches pull up lots of content form New South Wales in Australia.Joel: So where are you looking to take Twitter?James: I'm very focussed on getting news in now; there's no point in photos from an event from last week. News and updates have to be timely. We've got the tools to get the images/video etc – we just need to use them. And I think we can improve on that. I do also try to make a point of tweeting at different times and just between the hours of 9 and 5, to reach different people.Joel: where do you think the social media for South Wales Police will look in 3years time?James: I think it will look totally different! I don't think we are anywhere near our full potential. In a way this is only the first step in a very exciting journey. I'd like to think we'll give Starbucks a run for their money!Joel: how do you deal with negative feedback on Twitter?James: Over the past four months we've certainly had more positive feedback than negative; they key is how you deal with it. For example, one follower contacted us about a police car, which turned out was attending an incident. Any issues raised get passed to the best person in force and it is important to keep followers updated. We also have lots of queries about local policing, so this is a good opportunity for us to promote ourbobby.com.Joel: The superb thing there is that people have got a route to report suchissues...James: Yes, I mean, who would you phone to report that? You could be passed from pillar to post. This way there's a route in and it gets dealt with.Joel: What I love about Twitter is that I don't see 'technology' but 'people'...James: We always search for community spirit and we live in such a great country so we're just trying to capture that really. We want people to come here, to live here, set up a business and policing has got a huge impact on all that. These decisions are influenced by crime rates, insurance premiums, council tax etc and it's all linked back to policing and the continued reduction in crime hopefully! So it's very exciting time for policing!To FinishI've not done justice to the chat James I had, but I am planning on staying in touch so that I can keep up to date on how South Wales Police are updating and adapting their social media presence. Many, many thanks to James for taking the time out to talk to me about South Wales Police and I look forward to hearing more about the progress he makes (well, I'll be following on Twitter so I should see first hand!).
I'd like to end with a little bit about James, his first job with South Wales Police was as a Student Placement Officer based in Bridgend. It was his job to promote neighbourhood policing and to get out in the community to engage. After twelve packed months and hundreds of operation the Bridgend Division set the tone for delivering (and marketing) neighbourhood policing. He was even awarded the first ever policing commendation for "infectious enthusiasm and dedication" - if you met James you could well believe this! James' proactive approach to policing has been continued over the years with him delivering brand ambassador training for officers – more infectious enthusiasm which won a CIM Wales Marketign Award in 2009.
Best of luck to James for the future (not that he'll need it!) and I hope to catch up with him soon :)
Notes:1. This question probably shows that I was expecting there to have been more resistance to social media etc within the police. Perhaps I've got too battle hardened from objections to social media in the private sector!
