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A little over a week ago I had the honor of sitting down with Chief Dan Alexander of the Boca Raton PD and his Public Information Officer (PIO) Mark Economou for a discussion regarding social media and law enforcement. The Boca Raton PD is on the cutting edge of social media and it’s implementation of social media tools into their communication platform. Some of the social media tools they are currently using are: Chief’s Corner Chief Dan Alexander’s blog, Viper Communication Platform, Nixel, Facebook, Twitter, videos, etc..
So what is the Viper Communication Platform? The Viper Communication Platform is Boca Raton PD’s overall social media brand or platform. This is where you will find links to the Chief’s Corner blog, Nixel, Facebook, Twitter, news letter subscription, and Florida offender alters registration. This is a great resource for citizens of Boca Raton to choose how they want to be involved in “the conversation” with the Boca Raton PD, up to and including contact with the Chief through the Chief’s Corner Blog.
Most people are aware of what blog’s are, but some of you may not have heard about Nixel . Nixel is a communication tool that Boca Raton PD uses to notify citizens of incidents within their jurisdiction. To use Nixel citizens must register and choose how they would like to be alerted. They can choose email, text, or over the web alerts, which will inform them of traffic accidents, crimes, or other incidents worthy of notification. This is a great approach to be proactive and offer your citizens information that they never would have had in the past. Both technology and social media are the reason Nixel has been created and Boca Raton PD sees the value a tool like this can offer their citizens.
Boca Raton PD further communicates with their citizens through Twitter Bocapolice and Facebook. Boca Raton PD uses these two social media websites for official communication. You will find press releases, wanted person information, crime information, etc. These two social media “big boy” tools just add to the progressive attitude the Boca Raton PD is taking with understanding and implementing social media resources. They understand that their citizens are using these social media outlets and they are putting themselves out there to be involved with their citizens.
The Viper Communication Platform encourages visibility, intelligence, partnerships, education, and resources with the citizens of Boca Raton, Florida. Chief Alexander is reaching out to his community through a variety of social media tools and this is apparently working. Take for example a blog post titled Great Expectations from 08/24/09. This blog post was in response to two negative, but valid email complaints Chief Alexander received regarding notification of crimes that occurred in Boca Raton. The Chief humbly responded to the citizens emails with a sincere blog post admitting the challenge “new media” presents. The Chief did not brush these comments off, but implemented a change into how they communicate past crimes through the Nixel system. This is social media in action and it is working.
My hope is that more police agencies will see the value of how they can be involved with their citizens through social media and respond to their citizens as the Boca Raton PD has. As Chief Alexander realizes you can better police a community that you are involved with and who knows who you are. What does this mean? To build trust with citizens they need to know who the guys are with the badges and guns. Why? Because you gain trust and respect with your citizens and those same citizens will provide you with information when push comes to shove, if they know you and trust you. If they don’t know you and they don’t trust you then you most likely will not get much information if any at all. Social media is a great opportunity for law enforcement to bridge the gaps in communication that have been fostered over the years. I will continue to push and be a proponent of social media being used in law enforcement.
Thank you Chief and Mark for the conversation we had it is great to learn from police executives how social media is impacting their department.
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It’s great to see a PD with a branded social media platform! This is what a strategy should look like, not just a Twitter and Facebook account. Boca Raton Police Deaprtment is leaps and bounds ahead of most PDs in its use of social media and community integration.
Since the BRPD’s social media strategy is so comprehensive I was wondering what resources are allocated to maintain it. Is it just Cheif Dan Alexander and PIO Mark Economou? Or has the BRPD outsourced any of its social media initiatives?
I agree MIke and I think you are going to see more departments like Boca Raton PD implementing social media policies once they get wind of how much these tools help to communicate with society. I know Chief Alexander blogs, twitters, not sure about Facebook. Mark Economou works Twitter, Facebook and I am sure he has some staffers that help. I am finding it is hard to be a one man social media show. Thanks for the great comment and question.
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