Tip: Use Sprout Social Chrome Plugin

For many of us, social media is a collateral duty in law enforcement. If you are going to do it well and standout among others, it also means you have to invest a great deal of time, whether "on the clock or not."

Save time and use the SproutSocial extension for Google Chrome to schedule your content in advance. It's a cool trick which will make your life a little easier, providing you use the social media management tool, SproutSocial.

Install The Chrome Extension

Click here to access the Chrome Web Store for extensions. Search for the Sprout Social extension, and once you find it, install it.

Once it has been installed, you will find it in the upper right of your screen, most likely to the right of your address bar.

How To Use 

Now, let's say your surfing the net and come across a great article you would like to share with your community. Simply click on the SproutSocial icon, and a drop-down box will appear in the upper right of your browser window. 

This box is a miniature version of the "Compose" box you use in the SproutSocial program, when creating new messages. What's great is the extension already shortens the URL, as well as adds the title of the article you are about to share with people.

Post Now or Post Later?

I generally use this feature to schedule my weekly content on Sundays. I find 5 articles, one article for each day, and use the extension to schedule them on my social media platforms. 

You could use the extension to immediately post to your social media channels as well, if you needed to push content out to your community immediately. 

Heads Up - Here's The Warning!

Since we deal with public safety, and know that anything can happen at anytime, be cognizant of your auto-scheduled content. The last thing you need is for an article about online safety to automatically post while you're in the middle of giving evacuation instructions for a rapidly approaching fire!

Make sure to click on the "Publishing" tab in SproutSocial, then click on "Scheduled." From here, you can locate your scheduled message, click on the right arrow on the upper right of the message, and select from the following options:

• Edit
• Delete
• Send Message Now

Obviously, the third option probably wouldn't be the choice you're looking for.

There Are Several Options Out There

This extension is currently my favorite. However, there might be others which do just as good of a job, or maybe even a better one. I just like how this works well with my browser and the SproutSocial program. See if you like it, and if you have something else, by all means, share it with our viewers!