Almost 6000 locals on PSNI facebook site

More than 200,000 people follow the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s social networking pages and Ballymena PSNI’s Facebook page certainly contributes to the overall figures with 5,758 people regular followers.

Chief Inspector Bobby Singleton said: “In 2009 we set up the social media pilot project for the PSNI because of Facebook and Twitter’s emerging popularity as engagement tools. This began with just two corporate blogging sites followed by our own Facebook and Twitter pages.”

“We are delighted to see that exactly four years on we now have 35 Facebook pages and 28 Twitter accounts, mainly connected to Neighbourhood Policing Teams across Northern Ireland, with over 200,000 followers,” said the police officer.

Chief Inspector Singleton said the public now has the opportunity to talk to police about their interaction with the PSNI on social networking: “In keeping with our continued commitment to engagement, we’re keen to hear from them how members of the community found out about our pages, why they use them and perhaps most importantly how they could be improved.

“With that in mind we’re taking this opportunity to ask users of our Facebook pages to take part in a short survey.”

A link will be posted on all the PSNI’s facebook sites and can also be found at www.psni.police.uk.