The Ames and Iowa State Police Departments have embraced social media sites in recent years as a way to engage with the public and relay information to the community.

Anthony Greiter, community outreach officer for the ISU Police Department, said one main goal of outreach programs is to get across the idea that police are approachable and real people.

“We ultimately want to make people feel comfortable with us, whether it’s reporting that they’re a victim of a crime or reporting something suspicious that they experienced, seen or heard,” Greiter said. “We want people to know that they can come to us, and that’s a big part of our outreach efforts.”

Their efforts have shown to be very effective, Greiter said. 

When Greiter came into the position more than a year ago, his goal was to implement social media so police could interact with community members on a platform they already use.

He tries to focus equally on Facebook and Twitter, but they have very different audiences, he said.

“We see a lot more of the faculty, staff, parent audience on Facebook and more of the student audience on Twitter,” Greiter said. “Having to balance both of those is a little bit difficult in that I have two very different approaches for those two platforms, but they’re both very beneficial to us.”

The officer-student relationship has improved since the department began having a social media presence, which has proven beneficial, Greiter said.

“When there’s something negative in the news related to law enforcement and somebody latches on and decides to post something negative on our Facebook or Twitter, our community steps up and says, ‘Hey, you obviously don’t get who these people are. You’ve never interacted with ISU police if you think that’s how they would respond here,’” Greiter said. “Having our community back us up immediately and overwhelmingly is fantastic.”

As new students cycle in each year, Geoff Huff, the investigations commander for Ames Police, said it’s important to stay active and engaged with the campus community.

“There are 5,000 or 6,000 new people every year who have never had any interaction with the police departments here,” Huff said. “We don’t know what their relationship was with the police department. We want to keep that engagement going. If we don’t do something all the time, we’re going to lose half of our population over the course of just a few years,” Huff said. 

The outreach programs and events are done to show the public that officers are human beings just like everyone else who have a good sense of humor, Huff said.

“We’re pretty easy-going most of the time,” Huff said. “A lot of times we’re dealing with some pretty heavy material, so you have to keep a good sense of humor or you would just go crazy in this job. If I can get a message across to you and make you laugh at the same time, that’s what I try and do.”

Lindsay Laske, sophomore in elementary education, said she started following the Ames Police account after she saw a funny tweet from them retweeted on her timeline.

“They really do seem approachable,” Laske said. “I’ve never had a run-in with the police, but if I ever felt unsafe, I wouldn’t be afraid to call them.”

Laske said she also follows the departments’ Twitter accounts for alerts if something were to happen on campus.

The ISU Police Twitter account has nearly 6,700 followers, and the Ames Police Twitter account has around 5,500 followers. They maintain a friendly rivalry to see who can get the most followers. Huff said the account that is leading continuously switches back and forth.

“Every time you have something really strange or terrible happen, then you gain all these followers because people want to follow the story,” he said. “So we’re always one horrible incident away from beating [ISU Police].”

While social media has its benefits for reaching the public, it presents unique challenges as well.

Greiter said his goal is to get out as much information as they can so people can make informed decisions. However, finding a balance between accuracy and immediacy is difficult.

When there was a suspicious package on campus last year—what Greiter refers to as “The Medieval Sock Scare”—he was on scene tweeting what he could without putting the bomb squad or officers in danger.

Huff said that while social media is good for getting the word out quickly, an unintended consequence of all social media is that there is a public expectation that they’ll get information faster than sometimes possible.

“If I put too much information out there, it’s basically going to aid the bad guy,” Huff said. “We want our victims to get justice, and if we put too much information out there and they don’t, then that’s our fault.”

Greiter said there is sometimes an expectation people have with social media that the officers should be providing a play-by-play of incidents as they occur.

“If there’s an active shooter walking through the hallways, I’m not going to be tip-toeing behind him tweeting every move,” Greiter said. “We’ll get out as much information as we can as soon as we can so that students, faculty, staff and people in the Ames area can make an informed decision.”

Despite the problems associated with social media, it can also be extremely beneficial. Huff said they have had one missing person found this summer because of Facebook. Somebody saw their post and remembered the picture while out jogging and found the girl.

Students and the public will have an opportunity to see firsthand what happens on a night patrol shift this weekend as part of a Trick-or-Tweet-Along. ISU Police will start its tweet-along on Thursday, Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m., and Ames Police will begin at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 31. Using the hashtag #poltwt, students can follow along with the tweets and ask officers any questions they have.

“In the past, people have asked questions about specific laws to general safety tips to whether we prefer Blizzards, McFlurries or Frosties,” Greiter said. “I will take just about any question and get an answer out.”

Greiter said the best part of his job is the positive interactions with the community and highlighting those positive interactions.

“A lot of law enforcement is interacting with people on what I consider the worst day of their life. But the fact that we can have these positive interactions and it encourages people to call us, even when it’s not the worst day in their life, that’s fantastic. Outreach goes beyond the presentations—it’s our daily interactions with the community.”