Brand ambassadors beware: What social media gives, social media can take away.
The Gainesville (Florida) Police Department—and one of its most prominent officers—learned that hard lesson, spurred by a viral Facebook post surrounding Hurricane Irma’s deadly landfall.
The post, which has since been removed from the Gainesville Police Department’s Facebook page, features three officers, dubbed the “hot cops” after the post, posing while they prepared for their shift. The image brought more than 250,000 shares, media coverage and demands for a “hot cops” calendar.
That adulation didn’t last long.
The viral post led social media sleuths to discover unsavory Facebook posts written by Hamill, who was featured front and center in the “hot cops” photo. The offensive posts, which spanned from 2011 to 2013, included anti-Semitic jokes and calls for violence:
I find it funny that people will talk about how our government needs to do something about our economy and in reality it’s YOU who needs to stop taking advantage of our system and get a life and do something with your life. Gotta love reality when it hits you in the face. Stupid people annoy me.
The rant only got worse from there.
The backlash led the Gainesville Police Department to suspend Hamill, as expressed in this tweet:
GPD Statement regarding Officer Hamill: http://pic.twitter.com/ngz8YpOtGC
— Gainesville Police (@GainesvillePD) September 15, 2017
The controversy raises an important point about brand ambassadors.
Even though Hamill made the comments on a personal account, the Gainesville Police Department made him the face of the organization by featuring him on its Facebook page.
The incident raises an important lesson in brand management: Don’t count on your organization’s low or positive profile to protect you from negative media coverage.
The Gainesville Police Department posts prolifically to Facebook and Twitter and uses its accounts to relay PSAs and share live video of its community involvement:
Their most notable brush with social media celebrity was a 2016 Facebook video showing Gainesville Police Department Officer Bobby White’s cool-headed response to a complaint of noisy basketball players, earning praise for the department’s positive interactions with the public.
[FREE DOWNLOAD: Keep your cool in a crisis with these 13 tips.]
The video has received over 17 million views and resulted in the creation of the Basketball Cop Foundation, a nonprofit aimed at promoting goodwill by having police officers distribute sports equipment to the community.
According to White’s statement, posted on the association’s website:
As a police officer, it doesn't take long to see how damaged the relationship is between our country's law enforcement and the youth in their communities. There is distrust, misunderstanding, and a lack of respect between the two. It's why [I] have always done my part to try to repair that relationship with the kids that I interact with. It's why [I] handled the noise complaint the way I did.
Hamill’s prior posts—and the light cast on them—put a ding in that positive stance.
The Gainesville Police Department has taken the Hamill backlash in stride, continuing its prolific social media schedule.
As for the hot cops calendar, it’s still in the works.
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