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But first, what does it mean to utilize mobile devices
to spread messages? How do we accomplish it? What’s the benefit? Why should we be
tailoring our content to adapt to the mobile world?
Glad you asked. We’ll tackle all of these questions
this week while providing a military communicator twist to it.
Today, many communicators are implementing what’s
called a
mobile first strategy. Essentially, this strategy to turn their focus towards
mobile-friendly content layouts and designs. This may include implementing mobile
apps, creating social media accounts, and structuring content to fit a vertical
screen (such as creating video with cell phones). For example, the commandant of
the U.S. Coast Guard recently posted
a video on her Instagram page utilizing this vertical format – all because
the service is trying to appease their mobile base of viewers.
The mobile first strategy is keeping businesses relevant,
and this can directly apply to military instillation. It’s no secret the U.S.
military is struggling immensely to recruit more people to join the service
of late.
Mobile-focused content will only help the military in
reaching a younger generation that is using mobile devices on a daily basis.
According to Pew Research Center, 97% of Americans
own a type of cell phone. Additionally, 96% of those Americans with phones
are between the ages of 18 and 29. That is a tremendous demographic for
military instillations to target with content that is geared towards them via
their smartphones. And who would be creating that content? You – the military
communicators.
Date also proves that mobile-friendliness is great for
businesses in terms of search engine rankings. Mobile-friendly web designs increased
search engine rankings by nearly 78% in 2022. The mobile conversion rate also
increased by 15%.
Plus, readers today are not reading full-length
articles anymore. This is evident in the fact that news media industry is
hurting to stay afloat, while the newspaper industry is also suffering. Once again,
the mobile-first strategy comes into play. Mobile devices confine space to fit
on their smaller screens. This means that content will have to be concise. In
today’s busy mobile space where content is endlessly available at the touch of
a finger, it only helps to send a clear and concise message.
As a military communicator, your goal is to create accurate
and timely information made available to the public. These are two major provisions
of the DoD’s policy on releasing information. Now consider how the mobile first
strategy can play an instrumently part of these provisions. Military
communicators can utilize social media, such as Twitter or Facebook, to quickly
release accurate information when matters arise—even when not considering the
recruitment element.
Should you enter into the public affairs realm of
military communications, this will apply directly to you. A military public
affairs specialist acts as a liaison with the media and do not interfere with the
reporting process. Mobile devices allow military communicators to quickly disseminate
this information to reports via social media apps such as Twitter.
Military communicators have two types of audiences:
internal and external. An internal audience is focused on the command messaging
for your local area. Your internal audience consists of U.S. military members,
DoD civilians, and local national employees. There are many goals of command messaging
information, such as:
- Keeping the audience informed about what
is going on in the organization and the organization’s goals
- Informing the internal audience of significant
developments affecting them and the organization
- Increasing the troops and family members’
effectiveness as ambassadors of the organization
How can the mobile first strategy relate to all of
this? Well, we’ve touched on a lot of the points already. Mobile content can quickly
tell media members what message your military instillation needs to disseminate,
but you can also utilize the mobile first strategy to inform this internal audience.
Your external audience as a military communicator will
mainly consist of the news media. This is public information – which is the
information we want to share to civilians. Military communicators work hand in
hand with the news media, who is consider themselves the fourth estate when it
comes to service as a watchdog over our nation’s executive, legislative, and judicial
branches.
From a personal perspective, I have seen first-hand
how beneficial it is to utilize the mobile first strategy from the field. While
serving in Honolulu with the U.S. Coast Guard between 2021 and 2024, I was able
to work as a military communicator during the Maui wildfires.
I released information to both an external and internal
audience of the military via mobile devices. With our internal audience, I was
a part of a team of public affairs specialists that crafted messages that were
directly sent to our internal audience’s cell phones via text messages. These
messages included information about the state of the disaster, as well as
information on evacuation for our members affected by the fires in Maui at the
time.
Most of our work as military communicators during the
fires were geared toward the external audience. At the top of this article is a
photo I captured for my unit as we were redirected to Maui during a last-minute
operations change to assist in the search in rescue mission. This photo was posted
directly to Instagram and Facebook to inform the public of the Coast Guard’s steadfast
response to the disaster.
Using social media via our smartphones, our local
public affairs office was able to consistently post an average of two photos
and videos per day during the nearly two-week fallout of the wildfire in Maui.
This quick dissemination tactic allowed the news media to easily find our
content and ultimately tell the Coast Guard’s mission from the scene.
Ultimately, military communicators have many options
when choosing how to communicate with their internal audience and external
audience. However, tailoring that content to mobile devices will only benefit
you in the long run. It is not only the trend in strategic communication
methods these days, but it is also a feasible way to present accurate and timely
way to consumers in today’s fast-paced media world.
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