Example of an Ineffective Social Media Campaign

In 2014 the NYPD attempted a social media campaign designed to bring the community
together with the police force instead of against. The idea behind the campaign was to

have community members talk with officers and take pictures with them while on duty.

By sharing these positive moments on social media the department hoped it would start

a trend and bring more citizens and police together. What happened instead was rather

disastrous. The campaign kicked off with the following tweet,

"Do you have a photo w/ a member of the NYPD? Tweet us & tag it #myNYPD.

It may be featured on our Facebook."

The post included a wonderful picture of a friendly man posing and smiling with two

officers. Clearly they expected that people would respond with similar photos but they

failed to consider how negatively many people view the police in this day and age.

The response from this campaign was exactly the opposite of the desired outcome.

People immediately began posting pictures that portrayed the police department in a

harshly negative light. There were pictures of petty criminals being beaten with batons,

other pictures included young men being slammed onto the hood of a cars with

expressions of pain on their faces. These sort of pictures and more were all uploaded

with the hashtag #myNYPD. Clearly this was not the sort of images the department

wanted to be associated with. I think their biggest mistake with this campaign was the

particular wording of their initial tweet as well as the choice for the hashtag. They asked

people if they had photos with the police, rather than asking them to go out and take a

photo with an officer. That sort of phrasing may have encouraged the sort of conversations

and interactions they wanted. They also went with the hashtag #myNYPD, this

personalization made people think about their own interactions and previously determined

opinions, it encouraged people to think about what the NYPD meant to them already. What

they wanted was to create a new outlook, perhaps a hashtag like #trustNYPD could have

inspired a different more positive outcome.