A while back a colleague ran a campaign against domestic violence that stays with me.
They researched how best they could reach women in particular who are at risk and the men – and it is often men – who are the perpetrators.
Their research showed that beer mats were a way of reaching people.
I remembered this when I saw these tweets from Lochaber & Skye Police to someone who was following their account. They are written as a letter and they’re written in a thread.
A letter to a young woman in #Skye.
We know you follow this account and want you to see this.
We’ve told you previously that we think you are at risk of domestic abuse from your
partner.— Lochaber&SkyePolice (@LochabSkyePol) November 18, 2017
And then a second tweet.
We want to help you and are doing lots with other agencies to try to keep you safe.
You might not see us, you might not even like us being involved but we are always thinking about how we can help you.
— Lochaber&SkyePolice (@LochabSkyePol) November 18, 2017
And a final tweet.
We want to help you and are doing lots with other agencies to try to keep you safe.
You might not see us, you might not even like us being involved but we are always thinking about how we can help you.
— Lochaber&SkyePolice (@LochabSkyePol) November 18, 2017
A deeply personal message written in plain English. It’s so beautiful it’s poetry.
Be more human. Like Lochaber & Skye Police.
I took a pasting online for disagreeing with this approach.
At first I was impressed that the police cared enough about one resident of their patch that they were using social media to reach her and make her aware of help.
Then the final tweets suggested that no, there wasn’t one person in mind, this was a general awareness-raiser to anyone at risk.
I felt like a rug had been pulled from under me and I had been sucked in to a deception.
Others told me that it didn’t matter, there was bound to be one young women in need of help following the account and if she saw it and was helped it had done its job.
I’m still unconvinced. Ethical PR needs to be authentic and I felt this wasn’t.