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!