Twitter is one of the leading social media sites having millions of users worldwide. For the past years, it became a powerful social media platform in terms of business and communications. Millions of individuals are Twitter for fetching the latest news and catching up with the latest trends. It helps spark public interests by creating hashtags and trending it worldwide.
Having this type of effect, government agencies and law enforcement build their official Twitter accounts to have a wider audience reach. Different police departments and government agencies now use an official Twitter account.
How Government Affiliated Accounts Should Be Used
To notify the public of safety concerns
In the middle of a crisis, people will more likely check updates from their trusted community accounts. Make sure to relay the messages on time and also check the availability of the admins beforehand in case of an emergency update.
To disseminate news about community projects and engagements
People in the community would like to be informed if there are any community projects and outreach programs. Through government-related accounts, your citizens and followers will also be aware of your department’s involvement in the following projects.
Inform the public about crime-related details and reports
Informing the public of a crime can make the citizens do precautionary measures.
Public relations
Tweeting engaging posts such as positive campaigns can build up your relation to the community.
Informing the public of other issues like traffic reports
People who go to work, school, or anywhere outside can benefit off of your traffic reports on Twitter. Just make sure that the reports are precise and up to date.
In order for these functions to take effect, they need to have a wider audience engagement which means they have to gain followers on that platform. Agencies have to reach a certain goal for them to achieve their engagements to the community.
The Secret to a Growing Twitter Following for Law and Government Agencies
To accomplish the goal of spreading information and announcements, agencies have to build up their account to gain Twitter followers. This will help them reach their ideal engagements:
Law enforcement and government agencies’ accounts must be active
Agencies have to tweet often because it helps in the accounts relevancy and their brands’ efficiency. This helps in their followers to get engaged in their twitter community.
It is mentioned that a Twitter account must become active to keep the followers. It is advisable for accounts, especially those that are community-related to post at least 15 times a day. However, it is difficult for some agencies to maintain that activity as well as keep the posts organized.
Fortunately, there is no online support for Twitter users called GroupTweet. A number of police departments, such as the Omaha Police, for instance, have been using this service.
It is hard for any government-affiliated department or agencies to entrust an official account to many parties since it carries their department’s name after all. GroupTweet supports them by helping them make arrangements for authorized 30 users to have access to the official Twitter accounts.
Eve1n with the help of GroupTweet, the admins should still make sure of the arrangements in creating and posting content. They must secure the availability of each contributor especially when they have to post an emergency message to notify the community. Contingency plans should be applied whenever a situation arises.
The accounts must post information consistently
Followers would want a reliable source of information so make sure of being consistent and informative. In addition, they can use relevant hashtags in order to target their community better. Hashtags related to announcements or community events and projects will work effectively in reaching targeted audiences.
Respond to concerns and questions
Accounts that are made to disseminate information must always remain active and attentive. It is i+mportant to answer your followers’ queries as soon as possible. This way, they will see the accounts as trustworthy and relevant to their community.
Ask your community to follow community-related accounts
Having a few followers might hinder the fast dissemination of important messages. On the other hand, if the account gains a thousand followers, the message will spread quickly, thus, making things easier. Just make sure that the followers are relevant and will engage with the account actively.
Another thing, having a 4yo4ur account verified by Twitter can help your account gain more followers and more engagements.
How GroupTweet Helps Law Enforcement and Government Agencies
GroupTweet made things easier for agencies. In terms of cost and time management, GroupTweet makes it ideal for everyone. The admins can do more productive things and save time without thinking of having to post to the official account from time to time.
It helps the authorized users in using the social media dashboard without any burden. This is also perfect for agencies that might not have that many social media officers and to agencies that can’t fund expensive digital media dashboards. Learning GroupTweet is very easy to use so lots of agencies and big Twitter accounts use their services.
One of the concerns in handing over the account to many contributors, GroupTweet offers services that ensure you of the Twitter account’s security. They offer functions like “Tweet moderation” that can be enabled in the account. The contents of the posts to be published are sent first to the admins’ email address so the admins get to check every tweet before it gets published. According to GroupTweet, having more contributors in your account increases also your average Tweet frequency. This can sometimes result in big Twitter follower growth.
Phishing is notoriously used for hacking accounts and getting private information in it. With GroupTweet’s effective control and security system, they have records of decreasing rates of phishing attacks.
Conclusion
So it may seem that using Twitter is a lot of work. But in reality, it is not. Once you get a hold of it, it is very helpful and functional. Especially in this era where a lot of people today are tech-savvy and prefer to fetch news and community updates on social media other than the traditional media.