Oldest police force in the country engages with public across 68 social media accounts including neighbourhood police Facebook pages and HQ twitter accounts
Birmingham,UK CrowdControlHQ has announced that Wiltshire Police is using the company’s social media risk management and compliance platform to manage 68 active social media accounts, including 24 Neighbourhood Policing Team Facebook pages, several senior management Twitter accounts and community group Facebook pages including ‘Horsewatch’. Wiltshire Police invested in CrowdControlHQ software to address the demand by the public to report crimes using social media.
Wiltshire Police is using CrowdControlHQ to manage content on its social media pages as well as keep a record of the deleted content for reference. A single dashboard enables the communications staff to manage multiple accounts and everyone, given access to the system, is trained to use it and sent an electronic copy of the Force Media Guide. CrowdControlHQ enables on-line chatter, trends and comment to be managed consistently and provides a full audit trail of when people were last logged in and when accounts are inactive.
Helen Kennedy, Head of Media at Wiltshire Police said, “Wiltshire Police has seen how social media has become one of the most effective tools in terms of customer care and how we communicate with the public. Whether this is at a local level through our Neighbourhood Policing Teams or the Chief Constable’s Twitter account – social media has become an integral part of policing and not just corporate communications.
“CrowdControlHQ means that the communications department can maintain an overview and assess the risk, manage the problems and respond where necessary to ensure the public are getting a quality service from Wiltshire Police. It has made monitoring all of our social media accounts simpler and less time consuming.”
The different social media accounts have been divided among the members of the Corporate Communications team, including the Press and Media office, all of whom have access to the CrowdControlHQ platform. Several members of the call centre control room also have access and assist with out of hours monitoring of posts and replies, flagging any issues to the appropriate people.
Wiltshire Police posts videos online to engage the public’s interest and support. Recent videos posted have gone viral, including CCTV coverage of the safe use of a taser on a man trying to rob a convenience store. Using CrowdControlHQ also allows the communications team to monitor the online chatter and moderate the content being posted when social media is particularly active, for example, during a rave event in Swindon.
Helen Kennedy continued, “In recent months we have had continued success in identifying wanted suspects by appealing to the online community to assist. In one instance, the offender was at the police station within thirty minutes of a social media post giving himself up. Although we cannot put a figure on it, this type of use of social networks will certainly contribute to saving thousands of pounds worth of police time and resources.”
James Leavesley, CEO of CrowdControlHQ concluded, “The ease with which social media platforms allow users to share information and communicate has resulted in a steady increase in use by public services organisations. Managing multiple accounts and being able to respond in a consistent and accurate manner is essential for the police and other public bodies. A missed tweet or failure to reply could have severe consequences in terms of events and the resulting potential harm to individuals and/or reputations. CrowdControlHQ provides an easy to use single interface to manage and control all points of contact via social media reliably and securely, reducing risk across an organisation.”
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About Wiltshire Police
Formed in 1839, Wiltshire Police is the oldest force in the country. The Force is responsible for policing the county of Wiltshire and borough of Swindon in South West England with more than 2000 police officers and police staff, and community support volunteers working round the clock.
The Force is committed to making Wiltshire the safest county in the country and serves a population of 684,000 people across 1,346 square miles, including the towns of Swindon, Salisbury, Chippenham, Trowbridge and Melksham. It is also home to Stonehenge World Heritage site and the M4 corridor.
Wiltshire Police is split into three hub areas, Swindon (North Policing Hub), Chippenham andTrowbridge (Central Policing Hub) and Salisbury (South Policing Hub).
These hub areas are made up of 27 Neighbourhood Policing Teams and Response teams. The hubs are headed up by three Superintendents. The Neighbourhood Policing Teams work closely with partner agencies to ensure the people of Wiltshire are kept safe, satisfied and confident with the service they receive.
For more information please visit: www.wiltshire.police.uk
About CrowdControlHQ
CrowdControlHQ is the UK’s leading social media risk management and compliance platform built for enterprise. It is web-based software used by public and commercial organisations to support employees to optimise their social media engagement delivery.
CrowdControlHQ provides tiered access and specialist control features to help manage the reputation risk associated with the delivery of social media in complex, multi-user, multi campaign and busy customer service environments.
CrowdControlHQ was recognised by global research organisation Forrester within the World Top 10 ranking 2014 for ‘social media risk management and compliance software for enterprise organisations’, it was the only European representative featured and earmarked as a ‘Worldwide Contender’.
CrowdControlHQ was a shortlisted finalist for eight awards during 2014, including the highly acclaimed IRM Global Risk Management Awards – winning the CIR Risk Management Product of the Year (Specialised) 2014 and ACQ’s Global Award for Niche Consultancy Social Media Risk Management 2014 & 2015.
CrowdControlHQ is a venture capital backed British business servicing over 125 clients with over 10,000 users. Clients include Experian, Serco, Welsh Water, Greater Manchester Police and Arriva.
For further information please visit www.crowdcontrolhq.com or contact:
Mary Phillips/Andreina West
PR Artistry Limited
Tel: +44 (0)1491 639500
Email: mary@pra-ltd.co.uk
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