Interview with Maurice Vassar, fire captain for the City of Cincinnati What type of social media does

your department use? Facebook and Twitter. How do you currently see the fire department using social media? Keeping in contact with the public, safety updates, fire department functions and programs Has anyone attended social media lectures like the ones at FDIC or other similar conventions? No, no one has. Who updates the social media pages? Whats their title? I do [fire captain] and there are two other administrators, an IT person, like a webmaster, and a public relations, information officer. Do the other firemen show interest in the social media? How? Do they make suggestions? Yes, some post and comment. Some post pictures. Are these on-duty or off-duty pictures? On-duty, around the firehouse, some post off-duty pictures that theyve taken at the scene while on duty. Has this been an issue or problem? No, no, not at all. Does the department have interactions with a lawyer about social media usage for on-duty firemen? Off-duty firemen? No, not really. What kind of response do you see out of those who view the page? All positive, sometimes with a message of appreciation, sometimes a question What else could the department do to improve their image? To encourage support? To recruit firemen? More outreach, more contact, everything we can do. We havent recruited [using social media], but were looking to, probably will in the future.