The Biggest Police Recruiting Social Media Mistakes of 2025!

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Recruiting on social media…how hard can it be?  You create an account, throw up a post, and watch the applicants pour in, right? 👍

Well, there are a lot of simple mistakes, you won’t even realize you’re making, that can be incredibly costly to your agency’s future.  You ready to learn how to avoid the biggest ones of 2025? Keep reading! 👀

Hey everyone, it’s Tom Sye your Police Marketing FTO, and this week, we’re talking social media recruiting and how to avoid the biggest social media mistakes agencies are making daily here in 2025. 🙌

Look, the internet is flooded with bad advice on this topic and many agencies just jump right in, simply copying what everyone else is doing, blind leading the blind style and end up sabotaging themselves and their recruiting efforts.  Listen…you’re never going to win with recruiting that way…so let’s get it fixed! 💪

Here are police recruiting’s biggest social media mistakes you can be making in 2025…

1.  Not using social media for police recruiting

If your agency is not on social media or if you’re only using one or two platforms to spread the word about how awesome your agency is…let me give you a good old fashioned ‘love shove’ here…you’re not trying. 🤷‍♂️

Sorry to break it to you…but all of those Gen Z’ers, you know, your target audience for Police Officer Recruit positions…they use, on average, six different social media platforms a day and spend an average of two hours and forty-six minutes on them! 🤯

So, yeah…if you’re not on social media or you’re not everywhere on social media…you’re not trying.  Massive mistake.  Setting up an account is easy and costs you nothing. 😎   

2.  Having combined accounts

This is another big problem in the police recruiting world with agencies opting to have one main social media account that they post everything on.  I get the logic behind it…one department, one account, one person responsible, and a lot less liability of something getting posted that shouldn’t have. 👌

But when you combine your recruiting efforts with all of the other day-to-day activities going on like Coffee with a Cop, or your 9 o’clock routine, you dilute your audience down eventually into a group of people who only like seeing police posts and have no real interest in ever working for you. 😳

If you want to effectively recruit on social media…you must have separate main department and recruiting accounts.  It’s non-negotiable. 💯

3.  Posting the same thing over and over again

I see this a ton with agencies especially when it comes to ‘now hiring’ posts.  You come up with a design, throw it up on your page and post it over and over again until seemingly the end of time…boring your entire audience to death in the process. 😴

If you want to avoid sending your followers to the ‘unfollow’ button, keep your content fresh.  Change up the pictures, change out your graphics, and change the wording in every one of your captions so your audience feels like they are reading and seeing something new with every post you make. 🤩

4.  Turning comments off

This is another gigantic mistake that agencies continue to fall victim to here in 2025.  Look, I get it…not every person on social media likes the police and the only thing they like more than hating you is telling you all about it in the comments section. 🤬

But when you turn comments off, all you’re really doing is turning off the relationship building process with your potential applicants.  Sure, you’d prefer they called or emailed you…but guess what…they’re on social media at that moment in time and want to talk to you there! 📲

Ignore the negativity in the comments section, keep them open and engage with those who have legitimate questions about your opening or process.  If you’re waiting for them to reach out to you elsewhere, trust me, they’ve already scrolled on to the next agency. 💬

5.  Letting an outside company do things for you

In many ways, I’ve saved the biggest mistake for last, as there are now a bunch of outside companies trying to handle your social media recruiting with promises of all kinds of things.  While yes, as I’ve said many times…a lot of these companies can deliver results by running ads for you, but their real secret is that you can do the exact same thing yourself and you don’t need them. 😲

You want to know what they can’t do for you?  They can’t tell applicants how truly awesome your agency is from the experiences they’ve had from working there.  All they can give them is the same old talking points they give for law enforcement in general and every other agency they contract with. 😒

You don’t need them.  If you want to run ads you can do the same thing they’re doing and get the exact same results…all the while not having to pay them whatever fee they wanna keep charging you every month. 💸

Now…here’s another secret.  You don’t need to run ads to be successful with recruiting on social media.  You just need to follow the advice I’ve given you in this video and couple that with some really easy and effective content for your page. 🎯    

Ready to learn how to do that?  My Road to Better Recruiting online super course is available right now and will teach you the exact strategies, social media platforms, and winning content types that will not only attract more Police Officer applicants to your agency but get them to actually show up to your testing and help them through your hiring process. 🚀

Check it out on my website by visiting forcopstraining.com/rtbr and start recruiting like it’s 2025! 🏆

Did you get a lot out of this newsletter?  Help me change the future of police recruiting by sharing it with someone at another agency.  They’ll be damn glad you did…and I’d appreciate it too. 🤝

Have more questions about police recruiting, marketing, or anything else you're struggling with? Don't hesitate to reach out...I’m always here to help. 🙏

Until next week my Police Marketing Squad, happy recruiting! 😃

Tom

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👋 I’m Tom Sye, your Police Marketing FTO. I founded ‘For Cops’ Training to teach Police Departments how to attract more qualified candidates through the same tried and tested methods I’ve used for the past ten years at my own department to keep up with turnover and stay ahead of vacancies.

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