Transparency at European Command
Maj. Kristi Beckman is the Chief of Social Media for European Command Public Affairs
Well, the United States military continues to amaze me on the social media scene as we are marching forward into this wonderful new realm of communication and we’re having a blast…well, at least I am anyway!
There have been some great strides made by our friends throughout the military to include the International Security Assistance Force, who just revamped their Web site to open up the social media channels. Also, Incirlik Air Base is charging forward as well by getting their name in the Facebook and Twitter arenas. Do any of you know what the George C. Marshall Center is? Check out their Vlog about their social media endeavors. And more and more military units are jumping on the bandwagon as well.
The people European Command is reaching, the people we’re having two-way conversation with and the people who are showing interest are different than any of the folks we would have ever talked with before. That’s the fun part. It’s exciting to be able to make these connections and share our mission with so many different people throughout the world.
In my last blog, I touched on what I believe are the three key steps that we all should take in establishing ourselves through social media. Most importantly however, you must have a goal for what you hope to accomplish.
EUCOM’s social media goal is to be transparent. More specifically, our mission is to “Convey transparency, credibility and knowledge to establish relationships and followers in the cyber realm.”
We’re hoping our Web site allows for that transparency with our blogs, our news stories, our tweets, our social media links to include Facebook, You tube, Flickr and Linked-In.
So, are we transparent?
We’d love to get feedback on what you think about our site and what you’d like to see that we’re not doing. Be honest and critique us. We can take it!
Find more blog posts tagged with:
- International Security Assistance Force
- Incirlik Air Base
- Social Media
- ISAF
- George C. Marshall Center
Comments: 4
Dear Kristi Beckman, you asked on Twitter about "Transparency at European Command - Do you think EUCOM is transparent?" I'll try to compare the transparency of EUCOM with the German Bundeswehr. If you make a range from zero percent to hundred percent and put these two organizations on that line EUCOM is about 100 percent and the Bundeswehr is about 10 or 15 percent. I'm not joking. Last week a member of the German Parliament said: "We don't need Twitters, Facebooks and Blogs for communication." Oops. I think the new German Minister of Defence, Dr. Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, has recognized that some important changes have to be done. First decisions have been already made. Some highest "heads" in the German MOD have been cut, as known from the public press. And some more changes will follow as people say who are closer to him. This will for sure include transparency - like EUCOM does. Regards Ralf Zielonka
I give EUCOM high marks in transparency through social media. My initial engagement with EUCOM here was in following ADM Stavridis (and his prolific writing) from SOUTHCOM, but I have since been very impressed by the breadth of EUCOM's commitment to transparency through this technology. Being able to follow the Admiral, CAPT Buclatin, Dana Clark, and yourself (and I am sure others that I am not aware of) demonstrates more of an authentic commitment that runs deeper--and is more meaningful--than top-level leadership simply trying to make a statement about openness. Interesting where else we are beginning to see signs of this commitment... http://youtube.com/iraqigov is a new entrant, as discussed recently by Google at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/iraqi-government-on-youtube.html. Thank you for your leadership! v/r, Andrew Welch
Ralf, Thanks for your honest assessment. In my humble opinion, I don't think we, EUCOM, are at 100% just yet (more like 75-80%), as we've just scratched the surface with leveraging Social Media to establish conversation with the cyber community on relevant topics, including our activities and engagements with our partners in Europe. As you pointed out, Social Media should not be ignored and must leveraged to augment traditional media, public diplomacy and other pillars of a comprehensive communications program. Just like the internet, Social Media will continue to evolve, as more and more folks use it to communicate to friends and family in near real-time. In the near future, we plan to roll-out more initiatives to make two-way dialogue status quo and build enduring relationships with our friends in Europe and around the world. Cheers, Ed
Andrew, Good to hear and thanks for the kind words. As my boss stated in his response to Ralf, we're getting there! It's a whole new world for the military as you can imagine. And, wow, on the Iraq You tube channel. Now that is a fantastic way to harness social media. The opportunities are endless, aren't they? We still have many improvements to make to our Web site to make it more user-friendly and real-time. There are great tools out there to leverage all of this. The hardest thing is keeping up with the latest, greatest one! But we've got a good team and we've got great friends in the cyber realm, so I know we'll go far. Take care, Kristi