The other morning I had a strategy call with several members of a police department and one of the questions was; "What would you suggest we do to compete better with other accounts?" This came on the heels of me suggesting that their idea to 'create a series of viral videos' might not work out as easily as they thought. If you could come up with a formula for viral you would be a very rich person. There are just way too many variables to make viral happen. But, that's for

Engagement is one of those magical words that we hear a lot about. There are hundreds of blogs about it, white papers written about it and a few books that dissect the life out of it. I’ve never been one to shy away from talking about it myself because it is something that you want to achieve. Engagement is a beautiful thing, but it’s not the goal or the measurement you need. A couple of things got me to thinking more about engagement lately. One of the email responses from m

The above headline comes from The Press Gazette "Fighting For Journalism Website (https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/). Here is the link to the actual article https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/gwent-police-stops-press-releases/ This is nothing new. For the last several years more and more law enforcement agencies have been opting out of sending out press releases and choosing to instead post their information solely to social media sites. The latest is the Gwent Police in the UK. Bu

Podcasts have been steadily increasing in popularity for the last decade. Right now they are having a bit of a renaissance after having slowed in growth for a couple of years. I've been a fan of podcasts for a long time listening to them since 2005, but many go back way further then that. Podcasts can be a great outreach tool for law enforcement, but you need to commit time and resources to them for effectiveness. There have been a lot of podcasts that have come and gone ov

The time has come the expert said, To talk of many things: Of friends and shares and Facebook Likes, Of vanity and pings Why humanizing is so hot, And to never care of these things again. Thanks to Lewis Carroll for the inspiration of that opening. Perhaps firing your social media manager is a little extreme but you need to take a long hard look at what is happening with your social media. More specifically, and of a greater importance, what is not happening with your so

Twitter has never been known to provide it's users what they want. Generally any changes to the platform since the user community created the hashtag (incidentally, Happy 10th Birthday Hashtag), have been at the whim of the Twitter leadership. The community asks for the ability to segment 'favorites', Twitter gave GIFs. The community asks for the ability to edit a Tweet, Twitter gave 280 characters. 140 Is Gone Forever I'm a 140 purist. I love my 140 characters. I accept