“Branding” is one of those corporate buzzwords that threatens to be overused, if it isn’t already. Yet the concept–to create a set of words and images that inspire positive reactions in people–couldn’t be more important to law enforcement.
How does police work get branded? Usually, through the media. The TV show COPS is a brand, as are the CSI and Law & Order franchises. Because they influence public perceptions of law enforcement (the “CSI Effect,” anyone?), they all contribute to the larger ”brand” of police work.
Local media, the newspapers and TV news affiliates that cover your community, also figure into the branding equation for better or worse. Cops complain about this kind of branding a lot, how reporters encourage “armchair quarterbacking” over incidents for which they show little understanding.
But the news media can also brand police work the right way. Witness the photography of FrederickNewsPost.com’s photojournalists, who covered the funeral of Officer Richard Mark Bremer, killed in a motor vehicle accident on October 23, 2008. Their slideshow, accompanied to great effect by Chief Kim Dine’s eulogy, shows a different side to police work–one the public doesn’t often see.
Overall, however, traditional media influence over police work’s “brand” is too hit or miss to trust. The good news is that these days, it doesn’t take much to compete with them. You needn’t hire a public relations agency as the Atlanta Police Department recently did to brand itself for recruiting purposes. And pay no attention to the talk flying around the Internet about “personal branding,” as if people could package themselves neatly into a human Coca-Cola or McDonald’s–and inspire the same customer loyalty.
A variety of tools, many of them free, exist to help businesses and public agencies present the best image they can to their customers or constituents. The catch-all term for those tools, social media, refers to the evolving means of Web-based communication.
Social media use is meant to create and further relationships between people. Especially as the economy spirals steadily downward, smart sales people realize that the best way to move product is to build trust, give customers a reason to buy. In law enforcement, you’re not selling a product–but you do want the public to trust you. How else will you get those tips on your Crime Stoppers hotline, or get voters to approve a bond issue for a new police department?
A police department’s use of social media doesn’t have to be fancy, but it does have to be authentic. It has to come from a person in the department, whether officer or administrator. Perhaps most importantly, it demands a reassessment of current policy. The not-unfounded fear is that officer blogs or MySpace pages or YouTube videos could lead to the kind of PR disaster that got a Eustis (Fla.) police officer fired for misconduct committed off-duty.
But managed correctly, most officers can and will do right by their police departments: create honest dialogue with the people they serve, use that dialogue to build toward a stronger and more unified community-policing ethic, and ultimately brand their job the way everyone wants to see it: cops who care.
Image: robstephaustralia via Flickr
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Founder Christa M. Miller is a content creator and strategist (i.e. a writer who helps you figure out the best ways to use her writing) who specializes in law enforcement and digital forensics.
Great first blog post Christa. I will make sure to bookmark and follow your blog
“Branding” of a police department can be a rather long and drawn out process.
It takes time and a lot of effort to un-brand it first. Some of the examples you cite above, CSI, Law and Order, NYPD Blue, have served to brand police departments nationwide.
Because of shows like these, citizen expectations of what their police department can do are raised beyond the point of reality.
Much time must be spent educating the citizens on the reality of police work vice the television version. And you must start this process before you can even get rolling on the actual branding of the agency.
One area where I have seen police departments fail, repeatedly, including my own is in continuity. Many departments have a short attention span. They (the administration mainly) start the process of branding and public outreach, only to have it fall to the side after a few months or even weeks. This, in my opinion, leaves the citizens wanting and they start looking for information on their department wherever they can get it. Much of the time the main stream media, and that of course may be (but not always) skewed in an unfavorable direction.
Branding and public outreach is an ongoing function and once started must be continued. Failing to do that can cause more harm and create the appearance of closing doors to the public. To coin a term from auto racing, “You can’t un-invent speed.” Meaning, once you open the police department to information flow, trying to stop the information is nearly impossible and will cause a negative backlash.
Lastly, it must be done with the full knowledge and support of all the senior level stakeholders lest it be seen as “an officer” taking matters into his or her own hands and it must be done with sanctioned tools of the trade.
Without the full support of the senior level managers, the program is doomed from the start.
Thanks much, Mack!
Scott, those are great points, especially about continuity. I think what I was envisioning was policy that would allow officers to take the initiative as long as they do it responsibly. This is not something you can “mandate” IMO – it has to fit into the overall strategy of strong community policing efforts.
Is there a way to write SOP to accomplish this? Perhaps allowing officers to “officially” represent the PD online only if they have a certain number of years of service?