Our guest blogger this time is Ralph Mercer who has served for 32 ys in the military and is a passionate advocate for using social media in a military as a non-kinetic tool. Ralph continues to champion the use of social media as a community building and influence tool within the military and helps find ways to use 21st Century media tools in an operationally safe and effective way. You can follow Ralph on twitter [at]ralphmercer.
The traditionally hierarchical organizations and militaries specifically are not early adopters of technologies that disrupt their chain of command and information security. They tend to view these technologies with caution and reservation and social media is no exception. Little by little the opportunities and advantages that social media brings to the table is winning over some of the early adopters within the global military scene. Social media brings a wide range of opportunities to the military as a community building tool for the internal military family and domestic audiences as well as a powerful information management tool for the external global audience.
The potential of social media to become an internal community building tool for the military is exciting. Social Media can provide private and secure network to interconnect families of deployed service members developing an extended social network by providing a means to share of experiences and emotional support. These networks can also link all military communities allowing families to help families regardless of physical location. This connection can help new family’s research schools, medical facilities, housing and social services before postings reducing apprehension and family stress. Other applications of social media can connect hospitalized soldiers with their family, friends and peers boosting moral and helping them to stay connected to their regiment or squadron. Social media can foster a dialogue between patients and doctors, PTS specialists, support services and give the member a sense of control over their destiny and help speed the path to recovery. Personnel on return to work programs and members with mobility restrictions can now be brought together through social media into a truly global community. The flexibly and low technical requirements of social media allow it to be used regardless of geographic location, allowing service members to network with their peers and share experiences, ideas and support during their post deployment leave.
The ability to reach large domestic audiences and connect the military members with them on a social level will raise awareness and understanding of the military and explain the current missions. The potential of social media to shape domestic public opinion is enormous; it allows soldiers, airmen and sailors to connect directly with public without the traditional media filter. User generated content has a big impact on the young people militaries want to recruit and their perception of the content will play a large part in their decision to make the military the career of choice. We need to encourage military members who want to write and make videos about their careers help them connect with the general population via social media. We can no longer be afraid of what they our personnel might say. Social media is the format for their self expression and they understand what attracts the digital generations attention.
We can help them by being up front and clear about expectations we have of them and their use of social media. If we establish a few basic rules on what is acceptable when posting about the military and its operations, we then turn those who use social media into strategic assets. We need to have faith in our service men and women, we trust them to fix our planes, to make life and death decisions on the battle field and behave according to the code of service discipline every day. If we show our trust in them they will become our digital ambassadors. The rules need not be extensive or detailed, remind them to write and talk only about personal experiences and their job in the military. Expect them to be honest and polite, respect operational security and behave the same in the virtual world as we would expect from them while wearing the uniform in the real world.
Social media can also be a powerful strategic effects tool, capable of shaping global and local opinions. The hall mark of conflicts in the 21st century will be that they will not be won on the physical level but on the moral and mental level, where information and public opinion is the weapon of choice. This type of warfare will require militaries to employ social media as a non-kinetic weapon with the same skill and precision as tradition kinetic weapons. To win present and future conflicts will require a whole of government approach and militaries must have strategic vision and adaptive communications plan. This will require info-operations to declassifying relevant information quickly, be the first to post it in an honest and transparent manner to the local and global media outlets, helping shaping the bow wave of public opinion. In most cases the adversary need only pick up a cell phone take a picture and call their version of the story into a local radio station or post their version online for the global media outlet. In minutes their version is out in cyber space shaping domestic public and global reaction.
While there are legitimate security and operational concerns about the use of social media, we should not be scared off from using this powerful and exciting tool. If we hold our members to the same standards of behaviour as we would when they use any other form of media and show trust they will rise to meet the challenge. There are risks, and there will be mistakes but we need to deal with them on a one on one basis. You don’t need to discover all this on our own we can follow the example of some of the innovators of social media within the militaries of the world like Col Mike Caldwell
To set up social networks for our servicemen and their families we don’t need to invest large amounts of money and physical resources, there are many 3rd party providers of social media applications that can host secure and private environments at a very low cost. The true freedom of social media promises is that any one with a net book or cell phone can participate anywhere there is a wifi or cellular signal. The generation we are now recruiting into the military and the one on the horizon we hope to recruit from use social media as their native communication network and if we do not give them a secure and safe place to talk they will find their own outlet.
