Police tweets cannot be found – Twitter Policing Tip

The whole idea of Neighbourhood police teams using twitter is to improve their engagement with their local community. For that to happen the public they serve must be able to find the tweets being sent out by their officers. If you analyse the content of most tweets sent by police officers they are structured in a way that makes them hard to be found.

We all have used Google to search for web pages we want to read. Twitter search works in a very similar way. If I wanted to know what is happening in Wimbledon I would enter the word 'Wimbledon' in the twitter search box. If I was interested in what the police were doing I would enter the word 'police'. It is so simple to use and I know I am teaching you the obvious.

So why are police officers not adding the name of the town they are patrolling and the word 'police' to the tweets they send out. If you want your messages to be found and read by local people you have to make it easy for them to be discovered.

The mobile phone software application used by Surrey Police officers in area of Runnymede to send out patrol activity information tweets automatically includes the town names of where the officer is working. This makes all the Surrey Neighbourhood police teams tweets Twitter search engine friendly. Study the following tweets posted by Surrey Police officers on @RunnymedeBeat. Notice that each one has the location entered. (We are working on adding the word police automatically where there is room, for the next update)

Start adding the name of the town you are patrolling and the word police to your tweets now to help your local community find the messages you post on twitter