SUPPORT OUR CADETS WITH DINE-OUT DAY

It’s simple – just use your Dine-Out Day dollars at participating restaurants on August 29 or 30. Restaurants are reimbursed $2.50 for every $5 spent, and the rest benefits Cadets Unit #900. Help young people train for a future career in law enforcement –it’s as easy as having lunch. For more information contact the Youth Education Section at 453-7461.

Continued from page 7 and fun, because people don’t expect that,” Ricky says. “It’s really important to try to push the envelope when we can, and take a lesson from what the private sector does.” The private sector markets their products, and we need to do that too, selling the sheriff’s office as a product for consumers to appreciate. In short, we want brand loyalty. “If they’re going to get arrested, we want them to choose us,” Ricky jokes. “Don’t you want to get arrested by the best agency?”

Another big change Ashley brought to PCSO’s social media is using platform management and analytics tools such as Sprout Social to figure out exactly which posts have the biggest impact, and why. Some posts are guaranteed to take off – any post about an animal is sure to be popular. Case in point is a recent post with a tie-in to an Inside the Star story about members of our Marine Unit rescuing a manatee. Not only did the post garner likes, comments, and shares, but the media picked up on it and within days the PCSO was being featured in a positive light around the nation, from Southern Living to the New York Post

“Despite our best research and analysis we don’t always know what will do well on social,” Ashley said. “We’re still surprised about what blows up sometimes.” A while ago she posted a simple photo and text about two members taking first place in a sniper competition, and it did better than anything else that quarter. As she watched that post explode in popularity she tried to analyze what could have launched it into the stratosphere. Amid the congratulations and the inevitable thirst she thought she noticed a common thread: appreciation for the beards. Both men had particularly lush and luxurious facial hair, which is prohibited by policy outside of certain units. Was that novelty the magical formula? But since all our posts can’t be manatees or guys with beards (or manatees with beards?) Ashley is constantly working to find new ways to get the world to appreciate and interact with us.

You’ve probably seen members of PR everywhere around the agency, the “curious and well-informed civilians” of podcast fame and beyond. Whether it’s Ashley or our photo and video team, or yours truly hunting down stories in the most obscure areas of the agency, we do our best to always be expanding our connections with members and units in the PCSO so that we don’t miss out on anything. But there are 2,800 of you and just a few of us, and we can’t be everywhere. “Send me things,” Ashley begs. “Photos, videos, anything you think might be good for social, even if you’re not sure. If you have an interesting case, send us the case number and we’ll look at the body cam. If you have an idea, tell us and we might run with it.”

Our job is literally to make you look good, so don’t be afraid to send us things – we won’t let anything into the public if it’s not appropriate, and everything is vetted by PR. “Trust us, we’ve been doing this long enough to know what might be problematic.” Of course we don’t just want content from patrol and specialized units. Send us things from the jail, courthouses, and civilian positions too. Think of what you like to see on social media (it’s cats, I know it’s cats) and then figure out how that can translate to the law enforcement world. Animals, positive interactions with the community, happy stories, touching stories, funny calls, DUIs, interesting arrests… we want the soft fluffy stuff AND the hard crime, as long as it can be presented in a way that educates and informs the public.

People talk about the thin blue line – the idea that law enforcement is the line keeping society from devolving into chaos. We in PR sometimes say that we’re the ones who actually hold the line. Through the stories and social media content we create we interact with far more people than all our deputies combined. What we have to say influences more people than what any one deputy can do on their own. “Deputies are holding the line with the bad guys – we’re holding the line between law enforcement and everybody else,” Ricky says. “The public has a lot of thoughts about law enforcement, and we have a tremendous responsibility to mold those thoughts and point out when they’re wrong.”