On 23 May, the U.S. Army Twitter page posed a question to its followers: “How has serving impacted you,” with the expectation that active and retired soldiers would fill the thread with personal accounts of how serving in the Army benefited them. Instead, the thread was filled with posts detailing the tragic adversity soldiers and their families faced as a result of their service.
Hoping to stir a conversation about the benefits of serving in the Army, the Army’s Twitter page posted this tweet. The thread gained national attention for the overwhelming amount of negative responses.
The Army’s twitter mishap may deter the Navy and Marine Corps from pursuing aggressive digital media programs, but it shouldn’t. In fact, The Navy and Marine Corps should continue to expand their digital presence and pursue new opportunities to reach the public. Content and information are the names of the game in the digital age, and the Navy and Marine Corps need to exploit them to complete their mission in the modern world. The current and future generations of Sailors and Marines, live and socialize online, and all generations, not just the youngest, consume their news and entertainment online. Social media is not new to the public affairs mission of the Navy and Marine Corps; however, as digital technology expands and evolves, they must continue to pursue new ways to use social media platforms.
The Navy is continuing to move in the right direction as it shifts funding towards digital media and away from traditional broadcast media but, given the Army’s latest Twitter mishap, it is conceivable that the Navy and Marine Corps will proceed cautiously.[1] That would be the wrong decision. The Navy and Marine Corps need to be present on these platforms in order to engage current and potential supporters. To combat what many perceive as a growing civil-military divide, digital information must be at the forefront of the public affairs mission, despite the inherent risks that come with social media platforms.
Content Focused
First and foremost, the Navy and Marine Corps need to create digital content that is highly consumable and draws interest in the missions they complete. The jobs sailors and Marines do are relevant and fascinating—they just need the public to see it. The Marine Corps does a great job of creating a following on media platforms. Despite being the smallest of the armed services, the Marines tout the most followers on every major media platform, from Instagram and Twitter to YouTube. (Currently on Instagram, the Marine Corps has 2 million followers, the Army 1.6 million, and the Navy and Air Force both have 1.1 million.) The reason for that success is rooted in their content production. The Navy could learn from the Marine Corps’ success by replicating the short videos and photo series that appear on their Instagram and YouTube pages.
Producing engaging, quality content just scratches the surface of ways the Navy and Marine Corps can modernize their media presence. Digital audiences are aware when they are being spammed or advertised to, so content must be natural. Posts on some of the Navy’s social media accounts resemble paid advertisements as followers must navigate multiple hashtags and links. These posts immediately deter followers from interacting.
This post by the Navy’s Instagram page shows how popular the Navy’s content is, but the accompanying text is cluttered with hashtags and hyperlinks.
Influencers and vloggers are not a new trend and are a great opportunity to explore as a new way to interact with the public. The Navy and Marine Corps should use sailors and Marines who already produce high quality content on their own time. Giving them an official platform allows them to reach their peer-age group in the civilian world with content that shares the Navy and Marine Corps’ message. The greatest assets the Navy and Marine Corps have are their sailors and Marines. Featuring them in content on social media capitalizes on that fact and adds the human aspect necessary to bridge the gap between the military and the public.
Controllable Message
The biggest risk that comes with social media is controlling the message once something is posted. As soon as content is posted it becomes part of the public domain and the poster no longer has direct control over the message. The Army’s tweet is a perfect example. The Army’s social media team lost control the conversation they were trying to create.
How can the Navy and Marine Corps avoid the same mistake? The media and content they post must be purposeful. The Army social media team should get credit for attempting to use social media in an engaging way, but it did so in a manner that couldn’t be regulated. The Navy and Marine Corps must be able to steer the direction of the conversation after content is posted. The Navy’s “AMA” program on Facebook is a great example of how social media can be personal while remaining controlled.[2] The Navy can expand this program beyond its intended role of recruiting and make it a larger piece of its public affairs mission.
Interactive Media
The biggest strengths of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are the immediate and interactive nature of the content. The Navy and Marine Corps already utilize social media to inform the public about the work Sailors and Marines do on a daily basis around the globe. The next step is to interact with the people viewing the content. As the Army learned, a lot of activity on a given post occurs in the comment section, so there needs to be a presence there as well. The Army’s mistake, however, should not deter the Navy and Marine Corps from trying to engage the public on social media platforms.
Lieutenant Commander Arlo Abrahamson, in his recent post about the civilian-military divide, argued for a conversation between the military and the public. The easiest place for this to happen is not in person, as he imagined, but online. Reddit forums and Twitter comment sections are great places to answer questions and interact with real people in a meaningful way. Public affairs teams can leverage the permanent effect of social media that in-person interactions do not have. Real Sailors and Marines interacting in a comment section is much more personal and permanent than a standalone post or an in-person event.
A bold social media campaign is risky for the Navy and Marine Corps, as a post can easily become manipulated into a meme or face unintended backlash. The future of media and communication, however, is on these platforms. Social media is more than a recruiting tool: it is the way information is spread in the modern age. The Navy and Marine Corps should continue to expand their use of social media beyond just showcasing the services. By expanding to other forms of media like Snapchat and Twitch, the Navy and Marine Corps can get ahead of the curve and meet the challenges of public affairs in the modern age while actively engaging the public.
Endnotes
- Tom Bowman and Steve Walsh, “Navy Ad Campaign Hopes To Attract New Generation Of Young, Tech-Savvy Recruits,” NPR, May 31, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/05/31/615911052/navy-ad-campaign-hopes-to-attract-new-generation-of-young-tech-savvy-recruits.
- Brandon Martin, “Navy Recruiting Goes Live With AMA Program,” Navy Recruiting Goes Live With AMA Program, February 12, 2016, https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=93103.
