Give your notification system a day job: A recap

Thousands of law enforcement and other public safety agencies across the country are now using emergency notification systems like Everbridge Nixle to stay connected with their community, even when there isn’t an emergency. We were recently joined by Mike Parker, retired Commander of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, who came on to share some of his favorite tips and tricks for taking your ENS from simply providing alerts in an emergency, to keeping you connected with your community in an even more impactful way. To hear Mike Parker’s presentation, view the full webinar, Give Your Notification System a Day Job. We went back through Mike’s presentation and picked three of his ideas that we thought were most creative and brought them here for you to check out:

• Calendaring is planning ahead: What to say when there’s nothing to say.
• Want messaging ideas? Look at your neighbors!
• Bring your recruiting efforts into the 21st century.

If you are trying to send messages more consistently to build a larger following for your ENS in your community but find there’s nothing to message about, try googling “Social media holiday calendar” or “hashtag holidays” to find a list of made up holidays that can be used as the basis for a promotion. For example, September 1st is Random Acts of Kindness Day, a great time to send a message and raise awareness around an upcoming charity event in the community. There are thousands of law enforcement and other public safety agencies across the country sending messages every day with their ENS. If you find you are in a content rut, curious about message formatting, or just looking for ways to spruce up your notifications, your neighboring agencies could have great ideas that you’re missing out on because you don’t see their messages. Taking a look at notifications from agencies around you can be a great way to get some ideas for your own messages, just be sure to thank them after! Passing out flyers to potential recruits runs the risk of them losing it and forgetting all the important information on there. People carry their phones everywhere and at all times, so if you can get important recruitment information on their phones, they would never be without it when they need it! If you send a message to let the public know that you’re hiring and you provide them with the critical links and information they need to join your ranks, it can be a perfect way to expand your promotional audience and ensure you never lose a potential recruit because they lost a flyer. Want more helpful tips like these that can help your agency? Check out our recent webinar with Mike Parker and get more useful messaging tricks from a law enforcement veteran. Learn more about how Everbridge Nixle can help your agency connect with the public before, during, and after an emergency.