Social Media for Military / Gov

November 30, 2010 6:15 AM

I'm sharing how the military and us government (national and local) are currently using social media and would appreciate any great current stats, links or resources that you have found compelling. thank you for your help.
posted by quiverandquill to Law & Government (7 answers total)

Well, this might be an amusing "if we don't, they will" anecdote if you're addressing government, but Wikileaks are doing a great job keeping people very up to date via Twitter. Even though their server is being DDOSed right now, their Twitter updates just keep coming.

Anyway, I would find that mention compelling if I were headed to a presentation on social media in government. :-)
posted by circular at 6:55 AM on November 30, 2010

I am actually quite fond of my county's website: http://www.co.stearns.mn.us/

It's a medium sized and populated county in central Minnesota with a mix of both rural and suburban cities. Notice that the website is available in THREE languages - English, Spanish and Soomali. I'm big on inclusion, and we have a migrant population of Hispanic workers and a growing population of Somali refugees so this gives me warm fuzzies. :)

In the left-hand column, they have links to their different social media sites. I personally use Twitter and really appreciate their Twitter feed as it's notified me of job openings, kept me abreast of election results and Minnesota's current recount and just gives me enough information to know if I need more.

It's not much for research, but I think it's a good example of how social media and a local government can work well together.
posted by jillithd at 6:58 AM on November 30, 2010

I don't this is of interest although you said US Government, you didn't say US Military specifically. This is a hub provided by the British Ministry of Defence which brings together various different social media outlets from the MOD, the RAF, Royal Navy and the Army.
posted by eb98jdb at 7:07 AM on November 30, 2010

The US intelligence agencies are trying to push more people to use Intellipedia.
posted by jasonhong at 7:39 AM on November 30, 2010

I found this social media effort by the USAF really interesting. It's a really interesting melding of the military approach to things (very procedural but with latitude for individual initiative) and the wide range and language of social media. It's a pretty short and effective 'guide to the Internet', really.
posted by Happy Dave at 8:48 AM on November 30, 2010

Some basic training groups and military bases use facebook and twitter.
posted by Night_owl at 9:26 AM on November 30, 2010

A VOA reporter's twitter feed I follow covering the latest Korean standoff news posted this item this morning: "USFK Gen. Sharp via #FB posting reminds all servicemembers to keep their NEO (noncombatant evacuation ops) packets current. #Koreas" I assume he means that General Sharp made a Facebook posting so that his troops would see it, not that he learned about Sharp's comments via someone else's Facebook posting.
posted by Asparagirl at 9:39 AM on November 30, 2010