Greater Manchester Police will be taking to the global stage when it joins a worldwide Twitter day for law enforcement agencies.
Forces from as far afield as America, Sweden, Iceland and Australia will be taking part in the event, which starts at 8am on Friday 22 March. The ‘tweet-a-thon’ has been organised by LAwS Communications based in America, with the aim of highlighting the issues facing police across the world.
GMP will be providing extra updates throughout the day on arrests and calls to police, in addition to regular updates about local policing. Updates will be provided from the Force account @gmpolice and all the neighbourhood twitter accounts.
Deputy Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said: “We are keen to support the day and hope it will give people around the world more information about what officers are doing to tackle crime and keep people safe.
“We are continually looking at ways we can provide people with better access to the work their local officers are involved in, and social media is a great way to achieve this. We already have officers in each neighbourhood using Twitter and Facebook, and have our first community reporters going on patrol.
“I hope that we will have some community reporters able to take part in the Twitter day and give their insight and views about what police are doing.”
All GMP social media accounts can be found here: www.gmp.police.uk/socialmedia and the global ‘tweet-a-thon’ can be followed from the hashtag #poltwt
In 2010 GMP carried out the first Twitter Day where the Force used the social network to send out details of all the incidents that it dealt with during a 24-hour period.
DCC Hopkins added: “I would also ask people to give us feedback on how we are using social media so that we can continue to develop the conversations taking place.”
Source: Greater Manchester Police