Police's PR in practise

Finnish Police must have done something right. Last week we red from the news, that Finnish Police have got over 100 000 friends in FB. That is a lot of people, you might think. But is it really?

Many other police forces around the world are surprised about Finnish Police's "success" in FB. I'm not surprised. That is something I have seen allready so many times. To get a friend you need to be a friend. Simple as that.

If you have been reading my earlier posts, you might know the point that I have tried to tell you. PR is in all of us. In public organization like police, you haven't got enough money to do any big advertising campaigns or anything to make you to be seen in media in a way you want. The power lies on employees. As we have heard in our lectures, PR is free advertising - you don't need any money to do good PR. If you have money, the easiest way to try to get good publicity is to try to buy it. But money can not give you happiness in that sense, no matter how you spend it. Advertising is one way to spend your money and it can give you some results in short period of time. But to get good results in longer period of time takes something else than advertising. With advertising you can make your organisation a brand, but that is not the same thing that good PR.

I have to say that I love good management. Who doesn't? Allthough I don't allways recognise it. Good leader don't have to be "a boss" all the time. They say that time is money, but one can never spend too much time in listening employees. Keeping employees satisfied is like carrying money in the bank. There's no need for expensive adds when you have satisfied employees - they give you free advertising.

Then there is few difficult questions about police's stakeholder's. Who are polices stakeholders and how to keep them happy and make them to be your friends in FB? Every police officer sends a message in every situation he has with the audience. Police officer's audience is police's stakeholder. It can be a drunken man from the street who gets a hotel room for a night from the local police department, or the young lady with a fast car - and with a big fine after having a little conversation with authorities. Allmost in every case the police's "client" goes away with a smile. A drunken man is glad to have someone who takes care of him, and the fast driving lady  - well she's just happy to meet uniformed police officers ;)

So is over 100 000 friends in FB a lot? Yes it is, but it will be much more after few weeks and months and years... That's the result of good PR work - a good fieldwork of motivated employees. Employees don't actually even know that they are doing PR work, and it can be better that way. So, Niklas Loomans system theory works in practise. Management is communicating with employees. The discussions between them are open minded and some of it is even done over the media - so it is very open and honest and at least a two way system.

Now we have reached the point of good PR. In the old times there was no good communication with police and people, as I pointed in my first post. Today we have a police who is open minded and brave enough to use the social media as a communication channel to find good publicity an to influence people - to make a good PR. Take a look to it - you might learn something!

And the winner is...

OK, lets be honest. I've been little provokative about question of professionals. As we heard in yesterdays lecture, you can recognise professional PR person from his work. Amatheurs are using one way model, and professionals are using two way model... hmmm??

The best way to put two way model into practise is to get close to your audience. That's how you can reflect on their reactions. And who are close our audience (in police "business")? That's our police officer's who works in the field. Not bossess or me myself who are working mostly at the office. And media - as we have heard, massmedia don't actually reach all the people, only those who are using that media... And I, as a professional PR worker, am taking care of that the field officers knows this fact - two way communication is the best way to do PR work, and also the best way to prevent crimes too. Simple as that? All I need to do is teach this fact to our staff. And that should be easy (yeah, right...).

So the best way to do police work and policePR is to be close to our customers - normal people. That's why Finnish Police is at the Facebook, or at the YouTube, or at the IRC... in every place where people are nowadays. And the keyword is.... Social Media!

Who is a professional PR -person?

That is a question, that I have made several times to myself. Who can tell me the right aswer? Am I professional when I have studied enough organizational communication? And what is enough...?

Salla commented my blog and wondered how police officers are trained to work with media. Simple answer is, that the averidge is that they haven't trained it almost at all. Allthough it seems that they can handle those situations well and they know what they do,  it is a result of training in practise. Most of police officers can handle the media well because they have done it so many times. So, question is, are they professionals? Are they PR -people?

I think they are, because as I have tried to point out in my posts, the right way to think about PR work in practise is to think that all the staff are doing PR every day. The best "commercial" to organization is good and happy staff...

Shoud PR be handled by professionals?

I googled "policepr" and found one interesting site, http://www.policepr.com/. Chris Ryan's Police PR consulting offers help to police departments worldwide. This business idea is to help police through the ongoing crises that can be faced in police work.

Chris Ryan seems to know that policePR means more or less communication between media and police. He is worried about police departments public image. It is very important thing, but I like to point that PR needs to be handled not only by communicating with media and public, but also communicating with police officers - the staff (or employee). The communication with media is very important in crisis, but you just can't forget the staff. You can get help from outside, for example from this company, but they can not help you to create close links between the staff and the management. That kind of relationship takes many close communication situations. That is something you can not buy. The best PR is satisfied staff, also in moments of crisis.

Of course there are situations that has to be handled between the media and company's management. Here is one picture of that kind of situation in local police department few days ago. Management has to be prepared for this kind on media pressure.

Real thing - media pressure at the local police department

Finnish Police in YouTube

There are many ways how police as an organization is trying to influence people. Today the best way to try to find the right target group is to go to the social media. It is not the most common way for a public organization as you can read from Jaakko's blog - Public Organizations and PR. But Finnish Police is in the frontline as an public organization in social media.

Just today police have published a short film in YouTube. You can find it here. This is a new way to do Police PR.

How to create a good reputation?

In Finland police have a good reputation. That is a fact, if we believe in inquiries and barometers. But reputation do not come unassisted, the reputation has to be built somehow. 

Police officers built reputation everyday, when they are doing their work in the field. A big part of police work is to communicate with ordinary people in ordinary matters. Everything that police does, do not relate to something "bad", like violent crimes. So, every police officer builds police reputation by doing his work well, that is communicating with ordinary people. That’s the best PR that organization can get.  

Sonja comment my first writing. She had red that police’s reality shows has increased the number of applicants to Police School. That is true. The number of applicants did increase when that TV -serial started. TV has increased polices good reputation by showing the basic police work. In that show police does its everyday work well, and that increases its good reputation.

Does good work built good reputation in every organization?

Old time communication

”Samoin kielletään vartiokonstaapeleita ankarimmin lähestymästä katukäytävää silloin, kun joku käytävällä ohi kulkeva häneltä pyytää neuvoa, sillä se on kysyjän asia tulla konstaapelin luokse, jos hänellä on jotain kysyttävää.” Poliisin tiedotustoiminnan yleisohje vuodelta 1922

”Also it is strictly forbidden for a police officer to approach a sidewalk when there is someone coming closer and asking an advice, because it is that persons concern to come closer to officer if he has something to ask.” Finnish Police’s communication guideline, 1922

As some of you might know, I’m working as an inspector in Police Department of Central Finland. My job is to take care of police departments’ communication. That’s not my only responsibility, but it is the most time-consuming and, I have to say, the most difficult part of my work. That’s why I’m doing this - studying organizational communication here in Jyväskylä Open University. And when time goes on, I might even learn something - I hope! For me the best way to learn communication skills is to take only small steps at a time. And this is one of those small steps (it might seem really small for you). I am now starting something unusual for me. I’m bloging! How great is that!

My blog’s headline is Police and PR. I don’t want to draw the line only in Finnish Police, because I’m very interested to hear how things are in other countries, how Police is taken care of its PR abroad. So feel free to comment and give examples from all around the world.

 

I was wondering if things have changed in past years from that guideline I wrote at the beginning? What do you think? Have things changed in Finland? Or is Finnish Police still communicating like that guideline tell us to do - not communicating at all? I might be little (?) too partisan to tell you how Finnish Police are, but I hope you can find Police officers here in Finland rather easy to approach. My opinion is that the best way for police to do good PR is to be easy to approach and be close of citizens.

 

In this blog I try to give you a little view of Finnish Police’s PR and communication skills; or lack of those skills. It is for you to decide… - so Hand’s Up and don’t move, there is more to come!