Admiral Mullen’s social media strategy

The Public Affairs Office looking after Admiral Mullen has revealed his social media strategy for 2010 by sticking it up on Slideshare. Admiral Mullen is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for US forces and admitted a while ago that his wife reminded him to use his Twitter account.

 

Some interesting bits and pieces in this document.

 

1. The observation that "social media is quickly becoming the mainstream media".

 

2. The document notes that "the lack of official engagement" on Admiral Mullen’s numerous social media sites has been caused by the "difficulty of interacting without impersonating the Chairman online" and the sheer volume of comments, inquiries and questions. This "defeats the purpose of the medium" but the Public Affairs team hope these difficulties are "not insurmountable".

 

3. Currently, then, Admiral Mullen uses these sites to transmit information, gather the resulting commentary as "a snapshot or anecdote of the effectiveness of the message" and to "track trending issues or public opinion".

 

4. So for 2010 the plan is to engage more online particularly through Facebook and the Chairman’s Corner Blog. Though this won’t be Admiral Mullen’s job – it will be handed to Public Affairs Officers. Admiral Mullen has been asked to personalise his Twitter feed by providing two tweets a month on non-work related activity.

 

5. The Public Affairs team want to use Admiral Mullen’s existing social media platforms to begin to "drive the online conversation" and more closely align them with existing media operations – turning emails, letters and pronouncements into blog posts for example. 

 

More details below…

Chairman’s 2010 Social Media Strategy