For Spain's Police, Twitter Is the Social Media Gun

Inside the press room of the national police in Madrid where they work on social media sites. Source: National Police Corps of Spain via Bloomberg

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By Manuel Baigorri

December 17, 2013 at 11:24 AM UTC

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With about 680,000 Twitter followers, 70,000 friends on Facebook and more than 4.2 million views of its YouTube videos, meet Spain's unlikely social media star: the National Police.

Among law enforcement agencies, it has the second most Twitter followers after the FBI, according to Carlos Fernandez Guerra, social media manager for the Madrid-based police force. It's also the world's most retweeted government institution, averaging 16,000 times a week, he said.