Social Media and the Military
It seems that social media are all round the place and no one can escape from it. Even a group of people that I thought would not join it are increasingly investing this space: the military, and in this case the US one. And even if sometimes their policies regarding the use of social media are quite confusing, they can come up with brilliant ideas. After all, the US Air Force is responsible of the cyber defence, so it makes sense they join it.
Moreover, I feel that to some extent they have understood how to use it:
- They listen
The CIA investment in Visible Technologies, a social media monitoring service provider shows that this area is not going to escape the research capabilities of American intelligence. After all, we all use Twitter or Facebook, so it quite likely potential terrorists or any other kind of law breakers can use it too. And in case of you being horrified by this, remember they are already listening to our phone conversations with the Echelon system.
- They are building communities
Use your Twitter, Your Facebook or any other kind of platforms and you will find many groups or fan pages dedicated to the military. They have both elements that can help to build strong and powerful communities: a large base of people (the US military gathers several million people at the moment… plus their families, friends, veterans, etc) and they have passionate people, I would even say advocate of the different “brands”.
- They engage the conversation
I might be silly, but from a linguistic point of view you say engage combat, and so I feel it is quite in the genes in the army to be proactive. Plus they have learnt their lessons since the Vietnam War and know how to handle the media (just look at the first and second gulf wars). Official pages are usually carefully managed.
- They even use it for recruiting
Well they are looking for young people, so why not using social media to target them. You will find more info here.
The only thing I wonder in this case is how Patton would have used social media.
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