City divisions use messaging service for real time communication
With election season in full swing, the Denver Elections Division is getting the word out, for the first time this year, in 140 characters or less.
The elections division is one of the latest city agencies jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. Headline-style "tweets" update followers - including voters, candidates and campaigners - about important election dates and other voter information. The results also will be tweeted.
In an effort to keep up with the times and reach a broader audience, including younger voters, the elections division decided to use the social networking tool, in addition to its traditional method of briefing the public, which includes news releases and Web site updates.
"It's kind of an experiment for us to see if it's a useful service or not," said Nancy Reubert, director of communications for the election division.
So far, it's a bit early to tell, she said.
It's not just the election division that's on Twitter. Even though it's an off-year election and the only Denver race is for school board, a few candidates have logged onto Twitter.
acqueline Shumway, Vernon Jones Jr. and Chris Scott all set up Twitter accounts. The only regular tweeter, however is Scott, who tweets mostly about what he's up to.
Scott said Twitter has its challenges.
"One of the beautiful things and difficult things is you can't cover a complex subject like education reform because of the constraint of the word limit," he said.
Other city agencies who have joined the Twitter craze include parks and rec, Denver Public Libraries, the district attorney's office, Public Works and the police department.
While most of the city organizations are new to Twitter and some only have a handful of followers, the Denver Police Department is in a league of its own, tweeting about five times a day, sometimes throughout the night.
Although Lieutenant Matt Murray has only twittered for the police department since June, the department has 1,360 followers, which makes it one of the top 15 most popular police departments in the world on Twitter, Murray said.
The department joined in an effort to be more transparent, Murray said.
Murray tweets about major crimes that have just occurred or cases that have been solved, informing the public quicker than media outlets and straight from the source. Murray says Twitter helps curtail the public's fears.
"There's more anxiety when they don't know if you are searching for a nuclear bomb or two burglars," he said. "Real information helps calm people down."
Want to know why there were three police cars down the block last night? Followers can anonymously ask Murray, who responds usually in a matter of minutes, but sometimes a few hours if he's busy.
To Murray's surprise, the department's Twitter account grew legs of its own, perhaps because people love reading about crime or perhaps because Murray's had some fun with it.
Murray, whose job duties include media and community relations, knew that to be successful he was going to have to be creative. So in addition to posting important announcements the public needs to know, Murray also "Tweets the Law," posting laws people wouldn't necessarily know, but would find it useful to know.
On Fridays, he posts whacky, out-of-date or obscure laws that followers might find entertaining.
"You can't post boring stuff," he said. "You have to be engaging."