Officer am I in danger? – Policing Twitter Tips

Have a look at this tweet from a member of the public called Nick Terry. He wanted to know why London's Metropolitan Police Service helicopter India 99 was hovering above him. He may want to know for a number of reasons. Was there a public order problem? Was his life in danger? (There had just been a bomb threat made to the whole of London reported on the radio). Was a dangerous criminal with a weapon coming his way? Were the police just looking for a thief, burglar or missing person?

The point of this article is to reinforce the need for police officers to put search 'keywords' into their tweet messages. Look again at the tweet from Nick Terry above. He has used the 'keywords' #police and #helicopter and included the location of the incident #Hammersmith. I would suggest that he used Twitter's search box to find out what was happening. He would have tried to find information by searching on the words 'police' 'helicopter and 'Hammersmith' first. He did not find any information as at present the Metropolitan Police Service does not send out update information.

Hopefully that will change soon!

To get your Police tweets found by the public think of the 'keywords' they would use to search twitter and try to include them in the body of your tweet message if there is room. Look at my last blog post to read how Surrey Police are making their tweets search friendly.

The following Police Helicopter units are leading the way in using Twitter to inform the public what they are doing - The West Midlands Police Helicopter @WMP_Helicopter , the South East Air Support Unit @SEASU_Copters. East Midlands Air Support Unit @EMASUhelicopter, Staffordshire Air Support Unit @AirOneStaffs, Kent & Essex Helicopter @qh99heli, South & East Wales Air Support Unit @helicops, Cheshire Police Helicopter @cheshirecopter, Wiltshire Joint Police & Ambulance Helicopter @WiltsAirAmbo, Air Operations Unit for South Yorkshire Police @SYP_AirOps.

In a previous blog post I have already mentioned the benefits of how Helicopter crews using twitter can help reduce noise complaints - http://www.multizone.co.uk/policing/143-how-to-reduce-police-helicopter-noise-complaints-policing-twitter-tips.html