page_title: West Midlands Police
section_title: Social media
hierarchical_section_title: West Midlands Police / Structure and departments / Press Office / Social media
caption_attribution_description: English: Inspector Darren Wilson and Inspector Keith Portman held an online web chat to the community of Solihull.
context_page_description: West Midlands Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England.
  Covering an area with nearly 2.9 million inhabitants, which includes the cities of Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton and also the Black Country; the force is made up of 6,495 Police Officers. In 2014 there were 7,162 officers, 611 are from a BAME background, supported by 3,131 Police Staff, 188 Special Constables and 506 Police Community Support Officers – with these 10,884 employees, this makes it the third largest force in England and Wales behind the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police; and the fifth-largest force in the United Kingdom after Police Scotland and Police Service Northern Ireland.
  The force is currently led by Chief Constable Dave Thompson. The force area is divided into ten Local Policing Units, each being served by four core policing teams – Response, Neighbourhood, Investigation and Community Action & Priority – with the support of a number of specialist crime teams.
context_section_description: West Midlands Police maintains a presence on a variety of social media websites including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and blogging platforms. Each LPU has a dedicated Facebook and Twitter account, with more than 200 departments, officers, PCSOs and special constables also tweeting from officially endorsed accounts.
  The force has used various social media accounts to promote its activity in a variety of ways including running photo competitions, holding live web chats with senior officers and hosting live tweeting events from operations.
  Several of the force's social media accounts have won recognition as examples of best practice, including Solihull Police's Twitter feed which came first place in the 2012 Golden Twits' Customer Service category and Inspector Brown's Mark Hanson Digital Media Award 2012 for his mental health blog.
caption: Officers from Solihull taking part in a web chat
exif: {"Image PhotometricInterpretation": "32803", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3X", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Aperture 3.2.2", "Image DateTime": "2012:11:27 17:42:13", "Image ExifOffset": "214", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "5/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:11:27 17:42:13", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:11:27 17:42:13", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "1", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode, return light detected", "EXIF FocalLength": "50", "EXIF SubSecTime": "74", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "74", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "74", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2070", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "50", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}