Commentary by Capt. Charles Barrett, 3rd HBCT, 3rd IDFORT BENNING, Ga. — The Army was still on the sidelines stretching when the gun went off for the social media race.
The entire country was jumping on the Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter bandwagon while the Army “big brother” was just barely opening the razor-sharp jaws that have had a lockdown on internet freedom.
Last year over lunch, the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division’s public affairs team, began to throw out ideas on how to jump start the Army’s social media program. Lt. Col. James Carlisle, Staff Sgt. Natalie Hedrick, Spc. Ben Hutto and Pfc. Erik Anderson had a lot to answer; “How do we get the Directorate of Information Management to give us access to social media sites? Can a dot mil site adequately work as an official site and blog for a unit, or is a dot com the better way to go?
Who is responsible for managing the site once it’s up? What is the current Army policy on social media sites? Is there an Army policy on social media? What operational security considerations should be taken into account? Is this even a good idea?”
Two weeks, Carlisle’s own 100 dollars, and the internet savvyness of 3rd HBCT’s Sgt. Jeremy Gadd, the team was up and running with a unit website and blog, as well as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube accounts. The overwhelming realization came that it wasn’t just a good idea; it was a great idea. The question then became, “How do we take full advantage of everything social media has to offer?”
Capturing every detail of what social media has to offer is a daunting task. Just ask Pfc. Erik Anderson, public affairs specialist for the 3rd HBCT. Anderson is now responsible for maintaining, monitoring, and updating of the brigade’s social media sites. The distribution list for www.hammerpao.com is over 5,000 Soldiers, families and friends; there are close to 1,000 3rd HBCT Facebook fans, and 2,000 Twitter followers. Anderson wasn’t trained at the Defense Information School in Fort Meade, Md., to do this, and none of these new responsibilities are part of his job description as a journalist, yet his efforts are felt across the brigade, mostly by the family members.
The real key to social media sites is they allow for feedback; two-way communication between the command and the internal audience. The command is still putting out information to their internal audience as they have been; only the medium has changed. This new medium allows for the audience to more readily respond. If the command fails to take those responses into account then they’re not really taking advantage of social media.
This is the first major benefit. For the 3rd HBCT the responses received through the social media sites have been incredibly supportive. Unit leaders know they’re on the right track and just need to make a few adjustments. Anderson is the Soldier who collects all the feedback and reports responses to his chain of command. He does all of this on top of his normal duties.
The exchange of information assists the command and its internal audience to fill in some of those information gaps. Through online surveys and website analytics, the unit is now able to collect and track a wide range of data. This data can then be used to tailor to the audience’s needs better; something that never could have been done 10 years ago, or at least not without a lot of heartache. The Defense Information School explains the Army should take more of a “glass house” approach to telling the Army story. The 3rd HBCT PAO team now knows there is no better way to do that than through social media.
Once everyone’s on board with the “glass house” approach, public affairs can take on a whole new attitude with the media. There are companies who are praised for their stellar customer service. They don’t know how to say, “No.” All customer service should be like this, and that’s where public affairs customer service should be when working with the media. Building a relationship with this mindset will enhance the social media information exchange, and will lead to very positive and long-lasting effects.
A word of caution; at some point during the reading of this an intelligence officer cringed. It’s more crucial now than ever before that we as an organization maintain operational security. Social media gives us more opportunity to violate operational security and to a much larger audience. To solve this we don’t need to ban or create stricter policy on social media sites, we need to better enforce the already existing policies.
This security begins at the source, the individual Soldier who blogs at the end of every day in Iraq or Afghanistan. Just as important are the spouses of Soldiers who also have a duty to maintain the security of the unit. If you don’t know what is or is not part of operational security then it is your responsibility to find out before you discuss something on a social media site. There are also concerns of privacy, but a Soldier’s privacy has been and will always be a top priority of public affairs operators. Just because social media changes the way we send stories to our audience, it does not change the way we write or film those stories.
Social media is here to stay, whether anyone else wants it to or not. Networks are always vulnerable to attack. It should be the duty of all Soldiers to recognize the benefits of social media and then protect that resource, just as Soldiers would protect other valuable equipment and military systems.
So, where to go from here? It’s evident there must be a change in the way Public Affairs operates. Although not everything is listed for both sides, it seems evident the benefits of social media far outweigh the risks involved. There isn’t a need to create a military occupational specialty just yet for social media, but Soldiers at the Defense Information School should be getting some training on how to set up and operate these social media sites.
For Operation Iraqi Freedom, the tip of the spear has been held by many. So much improvement has been made in Iraq, despite the violence still present, and it is more crucial now to tell the Army’s story of success. Today, there are a handful of public affair operators, such as Anderson, who are the tip of the spear. If the 3rd HBCT PAO is ever asked, “Capt. Barrett, do you seriously think one Soldier can make a difference in this war?” With a smile and an overwhelming sense of pride for his fellow Soldier, he’ll say, “You bet, and his name is Pvt. 1st Class Erik Anderson.”
Cpt. Charles Barrett, PAO, 3rd HBCT, 3rd ID.
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