Hertfordshire Police fail at social media with #watfordbomb tag
Hertfordshire Police fail at social media with #watfordbomb tagHertfordshire Police Force showed off its social media skills by asking the public not to speculate about the involvement of a bomb being involved in an incident in Watford, despite using the hashtag #watfordbomb.
Yesterday the police were called to Market Street, Watford, where a 23-year-old man was threatening to hurt members of staff in a Co-op bank.
The man was arrested, and it was discovered that the devise was not viable.
The police has asked the public not to cause alarm by speculating about any potential use of a bomb during the situation and defended the use of the hashtag by tweeting “We are using the hashtag #watfordbomb as it was created by users and we want to make sure our messages are seen and to keep you updated.”
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Comments
why did it fail? seems a pretty good way to make sure folk who were searching for info got what they needed from the official channels
fail? sounds like they did exactly the right thing. unless there's something you're not telling us about a wave of panic that they subsequently created across hertfordshire? or hordes of copycat bombers invading the town?
this is a WIN not FAIL.
comments
Just updated the story to explain this is a bit better - police were looking to avoid speculation of a bomb being involved - I think that was the point that was meant to be made here.
Sorry for the confusion.
It seems to me that they did exactly the right thing. They wouldn't have got their own hashtag trending seeing as though one already existed, so they used the existing one (despite it having the word bomb) to re-assure the public. Great strategy IMO. A 'fail' would've been if they tried to get #watfordincident or something similar trending.
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