Social Networking and Strategic Communication for Military Communicators

Photo by Seaman Christopher Bokum

So, you want to become a military communicator, yeah? Well, one of the ways you’ll be spreading a command message (which we’ve gone over throughout this blog thus far) is via social media. Thus, it’s important for you to understand how to effectively utilize this journalistic tool in order to efficiently and creatively spread messages about your unit or overall branch of the military.

First, we’ll dive into creating a social media strategy. As a military communicator, you don’t have to think of building a social media strategy as you would in the civilian world. What I mean by that is you don’t have to worry about generating revenue from social media. You won’t be hemmed for building a massive following, either. Overall, your goal as a military communicator with social media is to share your command message. Because of that, you just have to focus on creating the content.

However, just because you don’t have to necessarily worry about the “business” side of social media when joining this career field in the military, you still have to take the platform seriously and treat it with military bearing as you would in person as a service member.

The Department of Defense has an entire policy on social media that military communicators must brush up on before diving into the field. The policy is known as DoD Instruction 5400.17.

It’s important to note that all of the content you publish to social media as a military communicator is a reflection of your branch. Take that seriously! Social media in the military is no the same as personal social media usage. That’s why it’s vital to learn more about it before diving in.

The DoD states, “when posting to official social media accounts, content should meet well-defined, appropriate objectives.” You must demonstrate a high standard of professional and ethical behavior when using social media in the military.

There are three important proprieties to discuss when examining the DoD’s policy on social media.

The first is being accurate. Just like you would if you were a civilian journalist, you want to ensure the information you are sharing to social media about your unit is correct so you can avoid any libel or slander.

The content also needs to be appropriate. Ensure that the account you are managing for your military unit is the proper vehicle for the message you are sending to the fellow service members or the public.

Next, the content you post to social media must be timely. This means you should be releasing your stories via social media in a timely manner. Fortunately, social media makes this very easy!

Fourthly, ensure the message is in the appropriate tone. Especially when handling varying topics in the military, ensure that you’re using the right diction to convey your messages via social media, and, as mentioned, treat social media with integrity when covering stories for the military.

Finally, make sure that the content your posting to social media as a military communicator is approved for public release. Everything you post will be approved first by a higher up for operations security purposes and information security concerns in order to be approved for release. To do so, ensure you are in accordance with DoDI 5230.09 and DoDI 5230.29.

When looking to actually develop the social media strategy, it will depend heavily on your specific unity. As mentioned, it all comes does to the command messaging that your specific unity has drafted. This will guide your postings and the overall content you create beyond just for social media.

However, if you would like to learn more about social media marketing strategies that civilians use, they can partially overlap with the military. Online marketing website Hootsuite lists the following nine steps for creating a social media strategy. Not all of these will apply to you as a military communicator, but they will give you an idea on how civilians use and monitor social media to create a following and grow their business.

The nine steps include:

1.     Choose goals that align with your business objectives

2.     Learn as much as you can about your audience

3.     Research your competition

4.     Conduct a social media audit

5.     Set up accounts and improve profiles

6.     Be inspired and create

7.     Create a social media content calendar

8.     Create compelling content

9.     Track performances and make adjustments

Social media will also become a friendly tool for you as military communicators when a crisis occurs. With this job in the armed forces, you will likely be deployed to a joint information command center when a crisis occurs. From personal experience, this happened to me during the Maui Wildfires back in August of 2023. The U.S. Coast Guard worked around the clock to conduct search and rescue missions when the fires started. Once the fires were contained, our organization managed and mitigated environmental issues.

Developing a social media crisis plan is crucial for civilian business as the military alike. If the Coast Guard didn’t have a set plan in place prior to the Maui fires incident, we would’ve been a mess. There would be little to no organization. We wouldn’t have an understanding of what we can and cannot post to social media.

The Maui disaster allowed us to connect directly with the public and the media – both of which were pressing our organization for as much information as possible on our response.

Dr. Bobbi Kay Lewis from Oklahoma State University wrote a dissertation on this very topic. In her dissertation, Dr. Lewis discusses how social media allows professionals to engage directly with consumers through original content. In turn, this breaks the one-way media model, which only benefits journalism organizations by sharing the stories they create.

As you can see by now, social media is a key facet to storytelling today. When you become a military communicator or if you already are one, you will likely be involved in social media one way or another. For example, when you create video or photography, you will be uploading them to a government media database online called DVIDS. The photo posted at the top of this blog entry is a photo of mine uploaded to DVIDS when I was stationed in Hawaii with the Coast Guard.

Those photos and videos on DVIDS will then be used on social media posts. The sooner you can grasp a solid understand of military social media policy and practices, the stronger military communicator you will become.