On behalf of the brave men and women of the Azusa Police Department, we hope you have a safe and happy new year. Today marks the first day our new website is live and available to the public. Find department and community news, crime prevention tips and more, here on AzusaPD.org.
Law Enforcement Press Releases
Law enforcement agencies all over the world have slowly been embracing the use of the internet as a tool for releasing information to their communities. Now, police press releases can be quickly released to the public, whether they are published in the newspaper or broadcasted on the evening news. As police departments began to realize the benefits of getting the information out to their communities, they also realized there is another component to the world wide web they could use to their benefit as well. That advantage is "social media."
Social Media And The AZPD
In November of 2012, the Azusa Police Department began designing and developing a social media program. Since we were starting from the ground up, we completed research on the topic, viewed other police department social media programs and attended training classes and conferences.
Armed with this information, we created a Facebook and Twitter account for our department. Due to the popularity of these two social media websites, we knew this would have to be our "meat and potatoes" of the program.
Taking It A Step Further
As we began learning more and more, and designing policies and procedures, we realized we would need to do more on social media to accomodate the needs of our community. This led us to creating a YouTube account for hosting public service messages, as well as videos wanted in crimes. We created Flickr, Instagram and Pinterest accounts, because we realized pictures have a way of telling a story. We also knew our community wanted to see their police officers, and their equipment, at work.
The Creation of AzusaPD.org
We looked at current trends in websites, as well as data regarding all aspects of "web surfing." We asked questions not normally asked by police departments. What time of day do most people look at websites? Do they prefer using a mobile phone, laptop or tablet? Are they using Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari or Google Chrome as their preferred internet browser? How do we get all the information we want the public to know, without cramming it all onto the home page?
Once we knew the answers to those questions, and many more, we hit the ground running and began the design and development of our website. Fonts, colors, navigation structure and photos were taken into account, and quickly evolved into what we believe is not only a great looking website, but an informative one.
Bringing It All Together
The Azusa Police Department Social Media Team has been developed not only for the purpose of disseminating information to our community, but to design, develop and maintain the program on a daily basis. The team ensures all of our internet tools are working cohesively together with one main goal in mind; Giving our community the news, information and answers to their questions they want from the police department, in a manner they prefer.
Click here to read more about the Azusa Police Department Social Media Team.