Small Police Agency Use of Social Media: Positive and Negative Outcomes Noted in a Case Study

Many studies on police use of social media focus on large police agencies. The current case study investigates how a rather small police agency has attracted broad attention on `Facebook'. By selecting a relatively small police agency that received a great many Facebook 'likes', the study investigates two social media-centered questions: (1) What are this police agency's strategies of engaging so many citizens on Facebook? and (2) what are potential risks related to these strategies? Findings suggest that two major strategies were used to achieve such uncommon `subscriber success' on Facebook: (1) maintaining the department's Facebook page as a personal account page directed towards a Chiefs or Sheriffs own philosophy of policing and (2) writing Facebook posts in a folksy vernacular featuring slang terms and relating humorous (often suspect deprecating) stories using such language. The current study proposes that law enforcement agencies may use informal communication to engage citizens, but they also need a formal team to give consistency and avoid dependency on a single person regarding managing their Facebook accounts. Burgoon's (1978) expectancy violations theory is used to help explain both the positive and negative outcomes noted in the current study. The principal public policy implications regarding social media use by police agencies are discussed, along with implications for further research.