Scrolling through the Facebook page of the Kerala Police is definitely an entertaining trip for the meme consuming, socially aware, social media users. With its popularity soaring, the page, which often provides witty and humorous content to spread social messages, has seen its number of likes and followers grow with each passing day. So much so, information and technology giant, Microsoft has decided to conduct a study on the new age media interactions of the Kerala Police.
A press release by the police information centre on Friday stated that the Kerala Police was the only organisation selected from India by Microsoft for a study, because of the distinctive ways in which it makes use of new age media tools and the impact it can have on society.
“Kerala Police was selected on the basis of the work they have been doing through social media, especially the way they communicate through their Facebook page, which has gained them a huge public support,” read the statement. The way in which Kerala police has been able to gain a massive following because of the way in which they communicate on social media is a subject of study which Microsoft will be focusing on.
The research will be conducted by the Microsoft Research Centre based in Bengaluru. As part of the study, researcher Drupa Dinnie Charles communicated with the social media cell nodal officer IG Manoj Abraham and media cell officers in the police headquarters.
During the early days when the page was formed, it was the Facebook page of the Bengaluru Traffic Police that was known for their viral and witty content which makes popular culture references to drive their message to the public.
It was then that the creative social media team of the Kerala Police had requested the people of Kerala to help them surpass the Bengaluru Traffic Police Facebook page in terms of the number of page likes. In a few days, the Facebook page of the Kerala Police became the most liked page for any police force in the country.
It now boasts of more than 9.5 lakh likes and is also more popular than the Facebook pages of New York Police Department and the Queensland police.
Kerala Police had earlier requested the support of their followers to help them reach one million page likes by New Year.
The page is known not just for their creative memes and trolls to convey certain social messages but also for their humorous replies to the comments that appear on their posts.
For example, when violence broke out in the state over the Sabarimala issue, they put out a video to troll those circulating fake posts against the Kerala police’s involvement. One of the comments posted on the video asked how was it possible to identify a fake post. The reply from Kerala police was an iconic dialogue from Mammootty’s movie King. (Sense venam, sensitivity venam, sensibility venam).
Another post by the Kerala Police that went viral on Facebook was a video they created to convey the dangers of performing the popular “Kiki challenge”, in which people would get out of moving cars, dance to a rap song by artiste Drake and get back in. In the video by the Kerala Police, a young lad who attempts it, directly falls into a police car and is taken away. The caption says ‘We don’t need dangerous challenges’
From educating the public about identifying fake news to spreading awareness about wearing helmet, the social media team of the Kerala Police have come up with interesting social media campaigns featuring prominent personalities.