Category Archives: Social Media

Denver Police Department Interview on Twitter Use for Law Enforcement

Twitter can be a powerful law enforcement tool. It can warn the public, ask the public for tips and be used as a way to convey news and information.

Thank you to Lt. Matthew Murray, Chief of Staff, for the interview regarding the Denver Police Department’s use of Twitter.

How long has your police department used Twitter?
Since 2009

What type of Tweets does your department make?
Primarily informational, but we also release news stories every day (Facebook)

What other social media does your department use?
Facebook, WordPress, YouTube, Pinterist
We have added a radio station and are building a television set. Broadcasts will take place via DenverPolice News on social media.

Does your department have an enumerated social media policy? If so, can
you share parts or all of it with us please?
No, we do not have a policy

Please describe briefly the situation of the recent shooter situation and
why Twitter was chosen.
Twitter is a platform that allows for immediate answers to both the media and the public . We have a large following – and the conversation is visible to all followers

Please list and describe other social media and methods of contacting the
public, if any, that were used in the situation.

Press conferences – social media is by far the primary focus for releasing
information by DPD

Does your city and county have any coordinated social media efforts in
place when there is an emergency? If so please describe.
Some small efforts, we are by far the largest in the city – thus become primary

Do your local communities have coordinated agreed upon in advance hashtags and other phrases to use for Twitter or other social media? If so, what are they?
No, it is not coordinated

If you were able to measure the effectiveness in you tweeting, please let
us know how valuable it was.

We have seen the media alter their own erroneous reporting, change their methods, and treat us with greater respect than before. Because we have a large audience, and are not afraid to use it, we have leveled the playing field.

The value is immeasurable.
We have also seen that this causes the public to question the media and defend the police department. As one prominent business man recently said, “They (Denver Police) are playing offense.”

Launch and Learn Twitter Event Thank You

Thank you to all those who attended and made the event a success. Thank you also to the Ralston Chamber for co-hosting and bringing the water and coffee. Thank you to Ralston Chamber President Tara Lea for manning the twitter account for the event and Linda Whitver for taking pictures.

Special thanks also goes to our gift prize sponsors:

A Flower Basket
5615 S 77th St, Ralston, NE 68127
(888) 339-8860
https://www.facebook.com/AFlowerBasket

Chocolaterie Stam
7474 Towne Center Pkwy
Papillion, NE 68046
(402) 933-7826
https://www.facebook.com/Chocolaterie.Stam.Papillion

O’Donnell Popcorn
5013 Grover St
Omaha, Nebraska 68106
(402) 556-6992
http://odonnellpopcorn.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Odonnell-Popcorn/166344560080536

Young Chiropractic & Rehabilitation Center
9825 Giles Rd,
La Vista, NE 68128
(402) 339-2283
http://www.keepthebodyyoung.com

Launch and Learn Twitter Event to Benefit Food Bank

The Ralston Chamber and Little Mountain Web Design will host a “LAUNCH and Learn” on 14 November at 11:30 AM at the Ralston Library located at 5555 South 77th St., Ralston, NE 68127.

Bring your lunch and laptops. We will provide the workshop, coffee and water.

Set up your account and learn what makes Twitter one of the most popular and fastest ways to connect with people, how it has saved lives and is becoming an important law enforcement tool.

As part of Little Mountain Web Design’s mission of serving local
communities, canned goods and funds will be raised for Food Bank for the Heartland.

While the workshop is free, please bring a holiday item canned good and a suggested donation for $15 for the Food Bank as part of our “Social Media for a Social Cause” campaign.

Drop in or RSVP to guarantee seating as space and materials are limited.

Please come and bring a friend.

Contact events@littlemountainwebdesign.com or call 402.932.7243 for more details.

Can’t make the event in person? You can donate online at http://www.fooddriveonline.org/foodbankheartland/LMWD

If you have Twitter and can’t come to show support, join us by using the hash tag, #RalstonLL for Ralston Launch and Learn. Please call or email to coordinate the details.

 

Twitter Stories: Haiti

In Haiti on 13 January 2010, a devastating earthquake hit Haiti. Over 200, 000 people died and over a millions had lost their homes.

A teenage boy from Haiti living in the US, Herold Charles, used Twitter to help reunite families and  get help sent to those trapped in rubble. He was recognized for his efforts with a nomination for a TeenNick Halo Award,  that recognizes teens who make a difference in their communities.

http://www.teennick.com/videos/clip/teenick-2010-halo-awards-herold-clip-2.html

Please watch your sound for this one as it begins with a commercial.

You can make a difference and help spread the word using Twitter and other social media.

Twitter Stories: “This Guy Has My MacBook”

On 21 March 2011, Joshua Kaufman’s MacBook was stolen. Fortunately for him and his laptop, he was Twitter savvy and had installed an anti-theft feature. So as his laptop traveled from his burglarized apartment in Oakland, CA, elsewhere he was able to track it, take photos of the fellow using the laptop and send these out on a blog (“This Guy Has My MacBook”) and Twitter to finally get it back and about 5,000 followers in the process.

His Twitter profile and website:

402webpagejkmackbook

Twitter Stories: Arab Spring

In December 2010 , the world began to see a number of protests, riots and demonstrations demanding political and other changes across the Middle East and North Africa. Social media and Twitter played a large part in helping people organize the protests.

Governments sought and tried to shut down the Internet. In places, they succeeded but that did not stop the Internet. The world now connected by and accustomed to that small burst of live microblogging information called a “tweet” found another way-Speak2Tweet.

@speak2tweet

Directions:

“Click the link in each tweet to hear a voice tweet. Call +902123391447 or +302111982716 or +390662207294 or +16504194196. Press 1 to tweet.”

Social Media Series: Twitter-The Definitions, Short Cuts and How to Use

Twitter is easy to use with simple commands and actions.

To Tweet

Go to “compose new tweet”. If you do not see it, click the house button in the upper right.

Enter text of no more than 140 characters.

Hit Enter.

To search

Go to the top search area and enter your topic or name

To join a Twitter party or global conversation

Set or find out the agreed upon in advance hashtag words to use and the time for the event. These can be listed on websites, accounts and via tweets or DMs to interested parties.

Shortcuts

N New Tweet
F Favorite
R Reply
T Retweet
M Direct Message
B Block User
U Unblock User
ENTER Open tweet details
L Close all open tweets

? This menu
J Next tweet
K Previous Tweet
SPACE Page down
/ Search
. Load New Tweets

GH Home
GC Contact
GA Activity
GR Mentions
GD Discovery
GP Profile
GF Favorites
GL Lists
GM Messages
GS Settings
GU Go to user

Social Media Series: Twitter-The Basics

We begin our social media series on Twitter, one of the most powerful forms of social media. Twitter is fast, easy to use, spreads like wildfire and is huge for crowd sourcing- the ultimate goal of most social media campaigns. It has saved lives, brought down empires and politicians, important tool in emergencies and a source for breaking news for many.

Twitter: The Basics

Twitter is a microblogging platform that gives short near real time or real time results for communication. While this usually consists of typed text, it can also be done via phone.

Here are some basic lengths and sizes for posts, names and images.

Post Length-Tweet

Tweets are individual posts. These are no longer 140 characters in length. This includes spaces. To compensate for this, many abbreviations have become common place such as “U” for “you” and “4” for “for”.

Twitter Name Length

15 characters is the limit for the name length on Twitter.

Bio Length

You get 160 characters for the bio.

Profile Image

81×81 pixels

Header Image

520 x 260 pixels

Background Image

The total background image, which is partially covered is 1280 x 1924 pixels.

Instead of one image, a repeating image can be used. We will cover this more later.

 

The next part of our series will talk about how to set up and use Twitter.

All rights reserved.This article and all articles are copyright Little Mountain Web Design.