Hoover officer named Nextdoor Neighborhood Champion

When it comes to communicating with citizens on social media, Hoover Police Officer Brian Hale ranks among the top officers in the nation.

Hale, a 12-year Hoover officer who works in community and media relations, was recently named by Nextdoor, a geographic-based social media platform, as a 2018 Neighborhood Champion.

Nextdoor sets up social groups based on neighborhoods, where residents must verify their address in order to join. Annie Barco, Nextdoor’s communications manager, said the website also offers public safety organizations a way to post messages in the neighborhoods throughout their respective cities or counties.

“People were already coming to Nextdoor to talk about these things, so it was just a natural fit to add Nextdoor public agencies to add to that conversation,” Barco said.

There are more than 3,000 “public agency partners” using Nextdoor, Barco said, of which 1,500 are law enforcement. The Neighborhood Champions were 35 officers from across the U.S. chosen based on their frequency of activity on the platform and how often they receive replies or “thanks” from residents on their posts.

Barco said public safety officers use Nextdoor to post about local safety issues, ask for public help in identifying suspects or even coordinate rescue and evacuation efforts in natural disasters.

Hale was one of four winners from Alabama on the list. Barco said the Neighborhood Champions received hats, mugs, certificates and other gear as a reward for making the list, and Nextdoor honored all of them on social media as part of the summer safety campaign, July 23-27.

“We really wanted a way to thank and honor all the public officials who use Nextdoor,” Barco said.

Hale said he started using Nextdoor in 2015 as he saw that the police department couldn’t reach everyone through its website or platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Hale said Hoover Police are always interested in “any way that we can get our message out to people.”

“There’s a lot of people that use Nextdoor that don’t use anything else,” Hale said.

Hale said he can reach 15,000 Hoover residents signed up for their various neighborhood Nextdoor groups, in addition to more than 21,000 Facebook followers and more than 10,000 Twitter followers.

“It’s just a game changer with the way that social media platforms are now,” Hale said. “It’s a matter of how can we not use it, really?”

Hale said most of what he posts on Nextdoor is the same as what’s posted on Hoover Police Department’s other social media, and he usually posts citywide. However, he can choose to post directly to one or a group of neighborhoods.

While he can post to any neighborhood group in Hoover, Hale said he’s restricted from seeing other posts in those groups. He can only see messages sent directly to him or replies to his own posts.

Being named a Neighborhood Champion was “unexpected and very cool,” Hale said, but keeping Hoover citizens informed is “just doing my job.”