The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were hectic for many parents as they juggled working from home AND virtual schooling for their young ones.
Captain Ben Gonzales of the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) sensed an opportunity to take some of these burdens away by engaging younger kids on the OCFA’s Facebook page. Through several video series, including one in which firefighters read children’s books about fire safety, the OCFA connected with its community and imparted crucial fire safety tips to the younger generation.
The OCFA’s Facebook page is one example of the incredible opportunities for fire departments to strengthen community ties through social media.
With great power, though, comes great responsibility. We’ve gathered a few tips to help you lawfully optimize your fire department’s social media presence.
The Power of Social Media for Fire Departments
Fire departments can use social media not just to help respond to public emergencies and keep the public informed, but also to strengthen connections and goodwill in their communities. Firefighters consistently rank among the nation’s most trusted professions, and leveraging that trust to reach as many users as possible through online communication is well worth the time and effort.
What does the public actually want to see from their local fire departments on social media?
Through social media, fire departments can cultivate:
- Transparency and trust with the public.
- First-aid education.
- Weather awareness and preparedness.
- Safe fire practices.
What Fire Departments Should Post on Social Media
General social media best practices stipulate that fire departments should stick to posting low-risk, high-engagement content. What does that look like?
1. Public Service Announcements and Safety Education
While you want followers to unequivocally understand that your department’s social media page is NOT the proper outlet to report emergencies, it can be a useful place to post reminders about seasonal safety precautions, such as:
- Gradually turning on facilities’ heating systems in the fall.
- Proper procedures for deep-frying a Thanksgiving turkey.
- How to put out a campfire or bonfire.
- Ways to program weather radios.
- Locations of severe-weather shelters.
Time-sensitive updates that aren't emergencies, such as road closures and potential hazards in advance of bad weather, are also great content ideas. No matter what information you’re posting, always prioritize accurate, concise messaging, because public trust is invaluable.
2. Community Events and Training Programs
Another pillar of social media strategy for fire departments is content that shows the department as an active member of the community. While taking part in or hosting various events and outreach programs, posting photos, videos, or key takeaways can communicate that your department is invested in the success and safety of the community.
Examples of this type of content include:
- Parade floats.
- Pictures from the annual National Night Out event.
- School visits.
- Fundraisers.
Posting about training, drills, and other behind-the-scenes activities can peel back the curtain on firefighting life, as well as educate and build trust with the public. Additionally, you might want to highlight new hires, promotions, and new certifications, which lets the community put faces to their local department.
Studies have shown that content that’s maximized for public presentation (fluffier content, such as community outreach posts) receives, on average, 2x the engagement level of public service announcements.
3. Low-Risk, High-Engagement Content
Fire departments’ social media accounts should generally stick to low-risk, high-engagement content. That generally describes content that avoids real-life emergency events, controversial matters, unauthorized subjects, and graphic or upsetting images and videos.
Some examples of this content type include:
- Behind-the-scenes looks at day-to-day life at the station, such as meal preparation or equipment cleaning.
- Pictures and videos of station pets.
- Light-hearted, politically neutral memes.
OTD (on this day) or Throwback Thursday posts that tell of your department’s history.
4. Lots of Visual Content
Pictures and videos are almost always more compelling than large blocks of text. Today’s digital consumers often ignore text-heavy posts and, after some time, may start to tune out your department’s social media feed.
Fire Departments can post pictures and videos of:
- Training exercises.
- Demonstrations of the dangers of fire (showing how quickly a wildfire can spread, for instance).
- Recruitment content.
- Retirement and promotion ceremonies.
Deciding Between Photos, Videos, and Graphics
Many social media managers assume that videos are the gold standard for posts, but photographs—and even assembled graphics—are sometimes more appropriate.
Pictures are effective for recapping all types of events, from incidents to community gatherings. They don’t require as much planning as videos and can be more convenient to view from mobile devices.
Videos work well when your goal is to connect with your community. Every type of post can foster connection with the public, but videos give your department opportunities to tell memorable stories. Short explainer videos on simple fire safety principles are perfect for TikToks, YouTube Shorts, and Reels (for Instagram and Facebook).
Graphics can communicate important messages, such as road closures and other alerts, more effectively than simple text posts. They’re also good for safety reminders, policy updates, and other informational messages.
Content to Handle Carefully (or Avoid Altogether)
Although fire departments can hardly go wrong with the aforementioned low-risk content, posting about serious and sensitive topics is sometimes necessary. Here are situations in which your department should handle with caution.
Personally Identifying Information
Social media content depicting victims of fires and other disasters should always be avoided. Not only are these posts morally and ethically questionable, but they could also violate patients’ rights under HIPAA and federal and state privacy laws. Departments should also avoid posting identifying information, such as private addresses and license plates.
Minors have even stronger privacy protections than adults; always ask for parents’ or guardians’ permission before posting them on social media, no matter the context.
Humor, Opinions, and Off-Duty Posts
Using light humor can be another great way to humanize your department and make the public feel more comfortable interacting with it, but it’s best to tread lightly. Make the humor as uncontroversial as possible, and stay away from politically charged topics. Additionally, opinions (unless they are about fire safety-related topics) should not find their way onto your department’s official page.
When it comes to off-duty or personal posts, employees are generally free to post about non-job-related matters. However, firefighters should avoid posting about any information, confidential or not, that they come into contact with while on the job. Remind your employees that anything they post on their personal pages can be considered a reflection on the department itself.
How Often Fire Departments Should Post (and why Consistency Matters)
The frequency of your department’s posts may be different than those of other official pages. Your department may be stretched thin, for instance, and lack the bandwidth to post multiple times per day.
Whatever the capabilities of your department are, try to be consistent. If 3–5 posts per week is all you can manage, try your best to stick to that schedule. Quality of posts always beats quantity, if that helps calibrate your expectations.
☝️Quick Tip: Mapping out a posting schedule for your department’s social media accounts helps avoid burnout and manage expectations for everyone, both your team AND the community you serve.
Moderation, Comments, and Public Expectations
Although fire departments should welcome public comments and interactions, they have a general responsibility to moderate comment sections while not violating free speech rights.
Courts have often held that government institutions' social media accounts qualify as public forums. In these public forums, the First Amendment protects most types of speech. So, even though some social media comments may come across as rude or politically charged, you should avoid deleting or restricting them.
Types of posts your department generally CAN delete or hide include:
- Doxxing of personally identifiable information.
- Hate speech.
- Harassing or threatening speech.
- Violence incitements.
- Obscene content.
Deleting off-topic comments on social media posts is a tricky area for many fire departments. In some cases, departments with clearly defined policies may limit the visibility of off-topic social media comments, but the rules are strict, and case law on the topic is still evolving. We recommend checking with your government’s counsel for specific guidance and, in the meantime, refrain from deleting or hiding off-topic comments.
Are Fire Department Social Media Posts Public Record?
Content posted to official fire department social media accounts is generally considered to be public record. That includes the content of the posts themselves, edits, deletions, comments, replies, and shares, as well as messages transmitted to and from accounts.
As public entities, fire departments are obligated to follow open records laws. Open records laws, such as the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), facilitate citizens' and taxpayers' rights to view and inspect records created by government agencies.
Are Screenshots Enough for Social Media Recordkeeping?
A pain point for many departments is ensuring they can provide accessible records when the public requests them.
While screenshotting social media content may seem like a cost-effective way to preserve records, it presents several potential issues:
- Screenshots are easily edited and manipulated, making the authenticity of the records questionable and ultimately failing to meet the tamper-proof requirements of public records.
- Records must contain the full context of posts, including comments. Ensuring screenshots contain every single comment and reply can be near-impossible with manual capture.
- Locating specific content in screenshots is incredibly difficult, as there is no full-text search or way to index the files that makes producing specific records efficient enough to satisfy open records laws.
Many of these same issues exist with in-app archiving tools that X, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms offer. While you might get a lot of data from these in-app tools, they still can be manipulated, lack important metadata that ensures their authenticity, and make locating and producing records in a legible format, at best, very inefficient, if possible at all.
Why Fire Departments Need a Social Media Policy
Fire departments need social media policies that provide clarity and clear guidelines for posters. Well-thought-out policies are essential for protecting the public, your firefighters, and the department’s reputation.
Your department’s social media policy should cover:
- The people with access and permission to post content.
- The kinds of content that are acceptable (and unacceptable) to post.
- Standards procedures for moderating, including hiding and deleting content.
- Expectations for personal social media use.
- Disciplinary actions for social media violations.
- The ways social media content gets saved and archived to satisfy open records laws.
This social media policy from the National Volunteer Fire Council is a good starting point to help your department create its own.
Managing Social Media Records without Adding More Work
Many fire departments attempt to save and document content by screenshotting individual posts and comment sections. Others might assume that in-app archiving options will provide what they need should the public request certain content.
One of the many issues with both of these options is that public records must be proven to be original and authentic. Photo-editing tools are more accessible than ever, leaving screenshotted records open to questions of authenticity and tampering.
Additionally, trying to capture content through screenshotting can take up an inordinate amount of your department’s time. Making sure screenshots capture every single comment on every single post will surely stretch the limits of a team that’s already stretched too thin.
Automated Social Media Archiving for Fire Departments
The good news is that there is an effective and efficient way to automatically archive your department’s social media content.
Modern archiving tools for public agencies (like Pagefreezer Social Media Archiving) have the following benefits for fire departments:
- Continuous archiving that captures the full context of every social media post and interaction—including deletions and edits.
- Searchable, indexed digital archives that make for easy access when the public requests records.
- WORM (write-once, read-many) storage so the public can trust the records are authentic and untampered with.
- Custom retention periods that allow long-term storage of archived content.
- Fully automated archiving that allows teams to be more efficient and focus on more important tasks.
Schedule a demo with Pagefreezer to learn how we help fire departments save time and money on social media recordkeeping.
Fire Department Social Media Frequently Asked Questions
Can fire departments post photos from emergency scenes?
While fire departments can post photos from emergency scenes, it’s not usually a good idea to post upsetting or graphic images at the scene of disasters. Furthermore, posting faces or identifying information of people who have not given their consent to be posted can run afoul of federal and state privacy laws. Only post emergency-scene photos if your department believes the benefits of informing the public significantly outweigh any discomfort they may cause.
Are deleted comments still public records?
Yes, deleted comments on government social media accounts are often considered to be public records. Public agencies need digital tools that continuously archive social media content and the full context of posts and threads, including deleted comments. Such capabilities are cornerstones of fire department records management systems.
Do DMs or messages count as public records?
Direct messages sent to and from official government social media accounts typically qualify as public records, even if the topic veers into personal matters. Although social media messages may be viewed as informal relative to other types of electronic records, they are nonetheless subject to open records laws if used for official government business.
How long should fire departments keep social media records?
Retention periods for social media content vary by jurisdiction, but a good rule of thumb is to hold onto legally defensible archives for at least three years. In some cases, fire departments may be required to keep social media records indefinitely.
Do volunteer and combination departments have the same obligations?
In some cases, volunteer and combination fire departments have the same recordkeeping obligations as career departments. Many volunteer fire departments, and especially combination departments, use public money to operate or have contracts with government agencies. In those cases, they may be subject to open records laws. It’s best to check your recordkeeping obligations before deleting or modifying any social media records.
