Washington State Patrol will be a little more sociable on Wednesday.
The state patrol’s government and media affairs staff will use social media — Twitter and Facebook — from 6 a.m. to midnight on Wednesday to give its followers a glimpse into the agency’s daily activities.
“Most people see only our troopers patrolling the highways and responding to incidents,” patrol spokesman Jason Berry said in a release. “We do a lot of other work we think people will find interesting.”
The staff of three will keep an eye on WSP activities from throughout the state to tweet and share updates on information on road closures, traffic problems and other trooper activities. The staff will be careful not to “spam” followers with too much information, according to patrol spokesman Dan Coon.
“We don’t want to overwhelm people,” he said.
The social media experiment isn’t the first time the state patrol jumped into the world of social media. The agency has been using Facebook and Twitter for several months and has started to see more public engagement with its online personas, Coon said. He hopes the Wednesday effort will make more people aware of what they do and that the state patrol is online to answer questions and share information.
Those interested can find WSP on Twitter with the handle @wastatepatrol or on Facebook at http://facebook.com/WashingtonStatePatrol.
