Does your department use social media?

[Officerstewart]

Positive community outreach and transparency has become increasingly important for EMS / Police / Fire. Is your department using social media? Any policies for or against individual members / employees posting work related media (obviously not violating HIPA) ? Is this accepted in your department? Do you think its positive or negative. We use Facebook Instagram and Twitter. Some more than others. Here are our org's @hackensackhumc @garfieldpolice @Officerstewart We use mostly Instagram for positive showcase and Facebook for events. We encourage positive posting and feel its beneficial however this can go negative unless properly managed. What are your thoughts and experiences.

 

[NPO]

We use Facebook and Instagram. Employees are encouraged to take and submit photos (HIPAA complaint, of course) for sharing.

I have my own personal Fire/EMS photojournalist social media pages on FB and IG and my employer encourages the community engagement I do there, probably mostly because I stay far away from the line of legality. They frequently use photos I or other employees take in publications both internal and public.

They also recruit me and one other photographer employee for some photo projects occasionally.

I think we could do better with the material we put on social media. We have boring accounts with low community engagement. But that's not my department.

 

[Officerstewart]

Wow! Thats really an amazing photo. Do you have an Instagram? I would love to see what your doing. I think this is a perfect example of what Department social needs to show. This pic says so much.

 

[NPO]

Wow! Thats really an amazing photo. Do you have an Instagram? I would love to see what your doing. I think this is a perfect example of what Department social needs to show. This pic says so much.

Thank you. That's actually me in the photo, I took it of myself but I hate being photographed which is why my back is to the camera.

On IG I am @thephotomedic

 

[DrParasite]

My department has a twitter account, a FB account and an Instagram account. Our PIO tries to share as much as he can, and I'm told he gets wrangled in by the chief's office as to what he can share. We have polices against employees posting work related media on their personal social media without either the Chief or PIO's approval, simply to both ensure the department is not shown in a potentially negative light, as well as to ensure that our PIO gets photos for proper distribution.

Our PIO is actually presenting at a public safety conference on some social media failures, both on an agency/department level, as well as an individual level. He's got quite a few examples......

With 1st amendment limitations, we try not to stifle anyone, however we also work to protect our department's image. Community involvement is huge, and something many EMS agencies underutilized, until an issue arises, and then they are scrambling to get the message out.

 

[NomadicMedic]

We use social media for both the agency and the associated training institute. (I manage the training institute stuff)

Log into Facebook

Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

www.facebook.com

 

[GMCmedic]

We have a main FB page for our program that pretty much covers all 6 bases and we have a page for our own base (I think because it was an established program of over 30 years when they were taken over).

Coming from being the PR coordinator for my FD and running their page and running my own business/entertainment page, I think there should be more posts but thats not my job. I think we should also tweak the way we word our posts to solicit more interaction.

We get a lot of likes and views but its always the same people.