Sheriff David Davis launched the new digital initiative earlier this month.
"We had over a thousand likes in little over a week's time," he said. "It's just another way we can connect to the people we serve."
Fort Valley police started using social media a couple of years ago.
The rise of the "hands up, don't shoot" mantra following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., was a watershed moment for Fort Valley Public Safety Director Lawrence Spurgeon.
Before the facts of the case were released, he said, social media ran rampant with the notion that Brown was surrendering when he was shot.
"Whatever message gets out first is the message that gets through," said Spurgeon, who created a Facebook page and Twitter account for his department in the aftermath of that shooting, which sparked riots in Ferguson and demonstrations across the country.
Spurgeon and two administrators post daily content on the page.
"It gives us an unfiltered message and allows people to have a bit of back-and-forth with us," he said. "It's been really critical to staying in touch with millennials," or those born from the early 1980s to about 2004.
Many of Davis' colleagues have joined the Facebook family, including Monroe County Sheriff John Cary Bittick, Jones County Sheriff Butch Reece and Telfair County Sheriff Chris Steverson, who joined Facebook back in 2013.
Jones County Chief Deputy Barbara Burnette said Reece "loves Facebook."
"It's actually helped us on a lot of cases," Burnette said.
After Davis settled into his consolidated department, he hired Celeste Smith as the new Web media specialist in the public affairs office early this year.
The former WGXA-TV news assignment editor also is enhancing the department's Web page as she continually posts content on Facebook.
"Nobody loves social media more than me," Smith said. "I was honored to be a goodwill ambassador for the sheriff's office."
Smith, who for 20 years was on the receiving end of sheriff's news releases, is now helping spread that information directly to the public.
She is also linking media stories about the Bibb County Sheriff's Office.
Numerous pictures of deputies at work fill the page, which also featured a meme — a humorous image — of what appeared to be a German shepherd puppy getting attacked by an orange tabby cat with the caption: "Dispatch!!! K-9 needs backup!!!!!"
On a recent "#ThrowBackThursday," Lt. Annette Horn was featured on her security detail with actress Barbara Eden during the 2012 Cherry Blossom Festival parade.
"Some of it is light-hearted, and some of it is what we do behind the scenes," said Smith, who also plans to start tweeting regularly, develop an Instagram account and pursue ways to post live news conferences.
Davis said his office already is getting a lot of feedback from the public and is analyzing the increased reach that the new platform provides.
"It's really been a real plus for us, and it's just part of that partnership in helping the sheriff's office move forward into the digital age."
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©2016 The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.)
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