When we think of Social Media these days, we often think of Companies and Individuals such as Celebrities who are promoting their products, their services and themselves by reaching out to people via these platforms. And we don't often think of an organization like the US ARMY, however even they are embracing Social Media and I was quite impressed with the extent that they have done so. Take a look for yourself:
You can see pics at their media center: www.flickr.com/soldiersmediacenter
You can Fan them: www.facebook.com/usarmy (625,000 Fans)
You can subscribe to their RSS feeds: http://www.army.mil/rss/
You can listen to their podcasts: http://www.army.mil/rss/podcasts/
You can follow them on Twitter: www.twitter.com/usarmy
(56,000 followers, 4000 tweets)
And You can even WATCH them on YouTube, check out one of many actual training videos below: www.youtube.com/soldiersmediacenter (8000 subscribers)
This makes me wonder that they must have a very thought-out social media strategy given that they work with sensitive information in sensitive locations.
Do you think companies ought to emulate some of the US ARMY social media best practices?
Posts
2 comments:
I think this is a very good thing. When someone is looking to join the military, they do their research. Not only do they want to know the pros and cons of the different branches, but they want to know what they are getting into.
Military marketing in this way will help achieve a few different things, in my opinion. I think these videos, and the media overall, will get those thinking about joining the Army more excited, and it will give them a better sense of what training is like.
A big thing for me is the unknown. When I joined ROTC, I did not know what the training was going to be like, and it took me some time to get adjusted. While I am no longer in ROTC, I am still thinking about the military, and their use of media keeps the Army in my mind.
I agree with Adam. Joining the military is a big decision and a good military marketing campaign is necessary to increase the number of enlistments. Most people that sign up are between 18 and 22 making social media a critical element in any campaign created to reach this target audience. Its good that the military is finally realizing this and moving towards social media instead of moving away from it.
Post a Comment