Criminals identified on Victoria Police Facebook pages are turning themselves in and asking for their photos to be taken down.
However, lack-lustre ‘likes’ on metropolitan police Facebook pages have prompted a rethink of the social media strategy.
Inspector Tony Langdon, Victoria Police Eyewatch page manager, said the Eyewatch pages helped regional police solve cases and communicate with their community.
“By posting images from videos or photos of people of interest, we have, on more than one occasion, had the suspect contact us to take the photo down and handed themselves in,” Inspector Langdon said.
The 17 Victoria Police Eyewatch pages were gradually rolled out from February, 2012, and will be reviewed at the end of the year.
While regional Police Service Areas (PSA) Geelong, Mildura and Bendigo have pulled in more than 5200 ‘likes’ each, inner-city PSAs Melbourne, Boroondara and Stonnington are struggling to break the 250-mark and “taking time to find their audience”, Inspector Anderson said.
The Stonnington Police Service Area Eyewatch Page had 142 ‘likes’ as of Wednesday September 24, while Boroondara had 207 and Melbourne had 247.
However, these pages were the latest to be launched out of all 17, joining Facebook in April this year.
Inspector Langdon encouraged all PSA’s with Eyewatch pages to focus their updates on the top three issues relating to the needs of their community.
He also ruled out using Facebook for immediate “on the spot” updates.
“The strategy will be reviewed at the end of 2013. It will generally stay the same, but could potentially be rolled out further if VicPol decided to do so.”
Stonnington Inspector Dagmar Anderson said that compared with regional areas the inner-city police force’s social media reach has “not been nearly as extensive”.
“We are currently trying to review that figure and find out why it is the case,” she said.
Inspector Anderson said part of the reason for the social media slump was that people in densely populated metropolitan areas are not acutely aware of the local police, as they may be in regional areas, but rather they view the police as a general, city-wide presence.
“The other reason is that Stonnington is a highly transient population, which sees an influx of population to the entertainment districts,” Inspector Anderson said.
“I think it is an exceptional opportunity for local police to communicate with their community, in fact, I think we could have started even earlier… We have got to keep on experimenting.”
Bike thefts, thefts from motor vehicles and police operations have proved popular on the Stonnington Eyewatch Page since it was launched.
As did this quirky story on a car covered in Post-It notes – click here.
Support your local Police Eyewatch page and stay informed about what’s going on around your area:
Stonnington – www.facebook.com/eyewatchstonningtonpsa
Boroondara – www.facebook.com/eyewatchboroondarapsa
Melbourne – www.facebook.com/eyewatchmelbournepsa
