Part I: NENA Sets Records for Social Media Engagement
As everyone in the 9-1-1 Community knows, April is National 9-1-1 Education Month, and the second full week of April is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week (NPSTW or TC Week). The former is an occasion to educate the public about key issues and trends in 9-1-1 service, and the latter is dedicated to recognizing the hard-working women and men of America’s 9-1-1 services.
Naturally, our client NENA-The 9-1-1 Association works to make the most of these dates for public education and member engagement purposes. One of our signature activities each year is a month-long campaign of daily posts on NENA’s Facebook and LinkedIn pages, reaching thousands of association members as well as their colleagues, friends, and families.
Team DCC works with NENA to prepare the April social posts weeks in advance, dividing them into four “themes of the week”:
Kickoff Week: Links to NENA’s public education resources about 9-1-1 and its challenges
TC Week: 9-1-1 hero stories and #ThankYou911 messages of appreciation
Third Week: Policy issues such as the need for NG9-1-1 funding and for occupational reclassification from “administrative” to “protective service”
Fourth Week: A grab bag including celebrity shout-outs, recent 9-1-1 news, and careers in 9-1-1.
For 2025, I’m proud to report that NENA’s social media metrics were record-breaking:
Total Audience: NENA’s total audience across Facebook and LinkedIn grew by 16% year-over-year to nearly 30,000 followers.
Reach and Engagement: From 2024 to 2025, impressions and reach both jumped dramatically, and total engagement (reactions + comments + shares + clicks) surged by +222%.
LinkedIn is Hot: Despite an audience nearly half the size of what NENA has on Facebook, LinkedIn has become the highest-engagement platform, with a best-ever 7.3% average engagement rate.
Two of the top five performing posts concerned a congressional vote to reclassify TCs as protective service workers (with nearly 7,400 engagement actions) and NENA’s appeal to its members to contact their representatives about that bill (more than 4,500). This demonstrates the power of a popular policy position to drive engagement.
Another top post was a warm shout-out to TCs from actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, who plays the TC character Maddie Han on ABC’s “9-1-1.” (We’ve developed a specialty in securing such videos!)
This year’s social media campaign also included not one but two special efforts:
Public Education Video: To serve its members and the public, NENA created a new 30-second video with consumer tips on how to use 9-1-1 responsibly. This single post earned almost 71,000 impressions and 1,250 engagements, including 850 re-shares.
9-1-1 Hero Spotlights: With support from Motorola Solutions, NENA invited its followers on Facebook and LinkedIn to submit video testimonials using the Gather Voices platform. In all, 34 videos were collected, and nine of the best were published, achieving more than 41,000 impressions and 2,000 engagements. Authentic, real-people stories are generally very strong performers.
Altogether, NENA’s April campaign on Facebook and LinkedIn represented a very robust public education and advocacy program.
Now read on to Part II: Who Recognized 9-1-1 Telecommunicators Best?
And if you want to see creativity and engagement like this on your next campaign, simply contact us at Dale Curtis Communications.