Which Branch is Social Media Savvy?

So over the past week I decided to do some research in order to determine which branch most effectively uses the two most popular social media networks - Facebook and Twitter.

Let's start with Twitter. I've ranked them in the order of who I thought used Twitter most effectively.

1. Now let me start off by saying that this is by no means a biased opinion in regards to who came in first place. Although I'm an Army Brat I've ranked fairly as you'll see :) The Army's Twitter page has the most followers out of any branch with 15,474. I started counting tweets on the 18th of Sept. so here's a breakdown of the Army's tweet frequency:

Sept. 18th - 4; Sept. 19th - 0; Sept. 20th - 0; 21st - 4; Sept. 22nd - 2; Sept. 23rd - 4; Sept. 24th - 4; and Sept. 25th - 1 (as of 12:15 p.m.). The Army also had the most tweets over the course of the week with 19, however, as you can see there were two days where they had no tweets at all, which proves that no one's perfect. The Army page has a good variety of information, but the only critique I'd have in regards to what they're tweeting about is that they focus on this variety. There are some days where they focus on very mainstream issues, which with something like Obama giving out his first Medal of Honor is acceptable, otherwise though, they need to keep working on keeping things interesting. So I can't give them an A+, but I'll give them an A.

2. The Air Force has two twitters, one that is the official page and one that is the Air Force Public Affairs Agency page. Both pages are usually pretty similar in content, but the public affairs agency tweets more frequently then the official Air Force page. Here's a breakdown of the official Air Force tweet frequency:

Sept. 18th - 3; Sept. 19th - 1; Sept. 20 - 1; Sept. 21 - 1; Sept. 22nd - 2, Sept. 23rd - 1; Sept. 24th - 0; and Sept. 25th 2 (as of 12:15 p.m.). So over the course of a week the official Air Force page had 11 tweets, and besides the 24th, at least one tweet a day. Not too shabby. The official Air Force page comes in second place in regards to followers, with 5,754. I will say that the Air Force page probably had the widest variety of tweets, in the sense that they weren't always linking articles; they have a lot of video, picture, and audio links as well. Their tweets are also pieces of information that are a bit more personal, or not necessarily in the mainstream media, which is one of the main purposes of social media networking. People get on Twitter and Facebook to get direct, interesting, and unusual information that they cant get from every day mediums like newspapers and television broadcasts. So overall, I'd give the Air Force and A- on their Twitter usage.

3. In third place is the Marines. However, it might as well be a last place. The Marine Twitter page only has four post in TOTAL, with two of those posts being in the past week. The Marines have 3,510 followers. I was kind of shocked to see how little the Marines use their page, because they seem to be pretty on top of getting in touch with possible new recruits through heavy advertising. It just goes to show that "assuming makes an ass out of you and me". I'd have to give the Marine's a D+ on their Twitter usage, because while at least they have a Twitter page, and they have a good number of followers, you've gotta use the page once you've created it for it to be effective!

4. In last place is the Navy. The Navy doesn't even have a Twitter page! The Navy Blue Angels have a Twitter page, but there is no official Navy Twitter page. So as for the Navy, they obviously get an F, because they gave me nothing to work with. I will say that the Blue Angels have 294 followers, and over the course of the week had one Tweet, and before that had a tweet on the 15th. They seem to use their Twitter reasonably, and I would say they could improve, but hey, at least they have a Twitter which  is saying more than the Navy...

As something fun I also followed Adm. Mike Mullen's Twitter - the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen had one post over the course of the week, but in previous weeks is a pretty frequent user. It was nice to see that even some of the military's highest officials are starting to take advantage of these popular social media networks!

Now onto Facebook. Again, I've ranked them in the order of who used their Facebook pages most efficiently.

1. The Army page again comes in first place, having 58,245 fans and their most recent post within the last twenty-four hours. Please note that this is not the highest amount of fans, but the second highest, you'll be interested to see later who has the most amount of fans...The Army seems to be on their  Facebook more then any other branch, however, they need to do a better job of filtering fan posting. I think this could be improved by managing some discussion boards so that their wall posts aren't as loaded. There are also a lot of inappropriate posts from fans, which was my main concern in starting to focus on filtering what's posted. The Army's Facebook information seems to be pretty synched with their Twitter page, which is also key. Besides watching the wall posts I say keep up the good work, A-!

2. The Navy makes up for not having a Twitter page by coming in second place in the Facebook study. They have 26,800 fans, which is less than the Air Force, but they are much more active then the Air Force is, which is why I've ranked them second. They Navy also has a problem with tons of fan posts, it took me way too long to find a status update on their page. So I'd say the same thing here, think about starting up discussion boards so that conversations can be taken there and off the main wall posts. Grade - B.

3. The Air Force comes in third place, with 28,917 fans, which again is more then the Navy has, but the last status update was JUNE 12!!! This is just terrible! As active as the Air Force is on their Twitter page I was shocked to see how inactive they were on Facebook. This is an easy fix, all you've gotta do is start synching the information from Twitter with your Facebook status updates. But I mean really Air Force? Pick it up guys... Grade D.

4. In last place is the Marines. While they have the most fans with 91,470, they only have nine TOTAL status updates! So with two terrible ratings, I'd have to say I'm worried about the Marines understanding the importance and advantages of social networking. Also note from my last blog that the Marines have recently banned Twitter use from their official networks. Maybe when this new "balanced" social media policy comes out the Marines will start to think about becoming more active on the web... Grade - F.

Again I decided to follow someone fun on Facebook, and this time chose Gen. Ray Odierno - Multi-National Force, Iraq Commanding General. Gen. Odierno had a status update within the last twenty-four hours and five total status updates within the last week. Not too bad at all I say.

Hopefully you guys enjoyed this small study! It was very interesting to compare all the different pieces. Again, it seems the Army has the best understanding of how to properly take advantage of these popular social media networks. The other three branches should take some notes...