Police Officers Association of Michigan

Digital Marketing Highlighting Michigan's Largest Union

The Police Officers Association of Michigan (POAM) is a full-service labor organization that provides every labor-related service from negotiations, grievance processing, and legal and legislative representation to Act 312 arbitrations. Advocating for the rights and safety of its law, POAM communicates critical updates and related news across various marketing channels.

Showcasing the Union’s Hard Work

From lobbying in Lansing on essential issues to legal representation, POAM works diligently to uphold the interests of its members – both on and off the clock. Their strong dedication, bipartisanship, and proven track record of representation have made POAM Michigan’s largest police union for the past 50+ years.

To ensure their messaging is shared with their member base, they needed to amplify their marketing efforts, which we began to help them with back in 2009. Our first digital marketing efforts started with content marketing and social media management on Facebook & X (known as Twitter, then). We then supported those messages with email marketing.

Within the last few years, we developed a mobile app dedicated to accessing the same news on another channel while providing a way for their 500+ association groups to communicate, house vital documents, and conduct secure voting sessions.

POAM social media mockups: Instagram feed and Facebook post.

Email Open Rate
Increase in Facebook Visits
Increase of engaged sessions

Circle Shape For Perfect Afternoon Banner

We’re proud of our online presence now. Our members and non-members rely on our website because it’s so current and newsworthy, and they’re able to find what they need because it’s easy to navigate.

President Jim Tignanelli

POAM Mobile App mockup with three screens, showing the app's home page and two landing pages from the website.

A Marketing Breakdown

POAM’s audience is more than union members – it’s made of engaged individuals who deeply care about their organization and the larger law enforcement community. From sharing the latest legislative news to sharing uplifting stories of camaraderie, this audience stays engaged with POAM more than just a reputable organization to glean information but to make meaningful relationships with like-minded individuals and stay informed on the latest breaking news.

Information & Resource Hub: Website Content

The POAM website is curated with topics ranging from legislative and legal to local department career listings and resources for grievances. Each post informs members about what’s upcoming and happening and how they can be involved and supported.

With the POAM team on the ground working, our marketing team seeds supplemental information, allowing them to understand additional insights. Averaging between 4 and 5 posts, including career listings, we optimize each for the intended keyword we want to rank for.

Meaningful Communication: Email

Armed with a robust website, the natural next step was to capture the already engaged website users and begin with email marketing. The newsletters allow POAM to communicate directly and personally with their audience and keep the union in the forefront of their mind, even when they don’t have the foresight to visit the website to stay up-to-date.

Community-Building: Social

Built from the ground up, we initially started POAM on the social platforms – Facebook and Twitter – before joining Instagram in late 2022. Without their passionate community, there would be no social media pages for their union and community to connect. We grew their Facebook following with the largest spike during the 2016 election year.

The POAM Facebook saw a massive spike in followers once we boosted a video of Donald Trump accepting POAM’s presidential endorsement. The video received over 1.2 million views, and POAM’s Facebook page jumped by over 3K followers in one weekend. In June 2016, POAM had 7,092 Facebook followers. In 2024, we grew to 13,553 followers.

We share relevant content and events as they happened, ensuring that what we share is tasteful and family-friendly to break up the news from political or legislative news.

Four POAM social graphics — 2024 Annual Convention, Remember the Fallen, Law Enforcement Careers, and POAM Mobile App.

On the Go: Mobile App

As more members rely on on-the-go, quick access to their union and department information, we built a custom mobile app for POAM. Union members can view union and department-specific folders, housing everything from recordings of membership meetings to housing membership votes.

Protecting the Protectors Digitally

We thoroughly enjoy promoting POAM’s initiatives and their latest news throughout all channels. We’ve had a few posts go viral over the years, we’ve promoted a few unicorns (posts that do extraordinarily well organically), and overall, we’ve stayed consistent in our posting and content creation. Their membership and social following are also to thank for its success. They are extremely engaged and passionate individuals who care about what we post. Without them, there would be no social media presence or POAM!