Social Media use by Members of the US Military

Abstract

The use of social media has become rampant all over the globe in this era of smartphones and digital migration. Its introduction in the US military culture brought about significant challenges due to the lack of its own consistent policies. After a certain period, the military embraced the social media which has since advanced up to date. However, there is a need to offer proper training to the low-level units of the military as well as encouragement to utilize the social media. This essay focuses on why the service members of the United States military should be properly trained and encouraged to utilize social media. This is an argumentative essay that identifies some of the benefits brought about by the utilization of social media. The benefits of the essay include leadership communication, family support, recruiting, professional relationships, training, medical issues, discipline and enforcement of the law. The conclusion identifies the social media as the next big strategy for adoption to enhance effective and efficient operations.

Social Media use by Members of the US Military

The use of social media has become a fundamental part of the day to day lives of today’s society. This technology has the highest level of penetration in the society as a vast majority of people use the key global platforms to share experiences, media, and documents. The platforms, however, pose dangers to their large audiences by exposing them to daily cyber threats possibilities. The social media impact calls for intelligence agencies and the government to explore the opportunity to adopt social media in the military department. It offers the military departments with ideal avenues for engaging in different activities of concern since the platforms have enormous potentialities that require utilization, monitoring, and control. The social media use at a tactical level may benefit the military department in many areas such as leadership communication, family support, recruiting, professional relationships, training, medical issues, discipline and enforcement of the law. Service members of the United States military should be properly trained and encouraged to utilize social media.

Leadership Communication

The social media platform gives the leadership an opportunity to communicate to the civilians and the members of the military since it has become the easiest way of communicating laterally among the peers. Therefore, military units should acquire the right training to engage themselves at different levels to ensure there is a provision of the correct military narrative that shapes the public opinion. According to a survey by Cuccio (2014), 81 percent of interviewees argued that social media was the best platform for firm leaders to interact with the public and stakeholders while 84 percent believed that it was the most effective method to facilitate deeper networks with the shareholders, employees, and customers. Therefore, the US service members of the military need to engage themselves more on social media platforms to portray the right image of the department and offer an avenue of interacting with the public.

Family Support

A majority of the US military service members are married and have families who expect updates about the organizational events of the military departments. Social media can be the easiest way to pass that message to the family members of the military service members. A proper training and utilization of the social media are capable to enhance strategic messaging involving events such as public acknowledgment of exceptional achievements as well as notification of operational unit events. Mergel (2016) states that the communication of military service members with their spouses during their deployments is essential in promoting some proximity form among their families. Mergel also argues that social media could steer the service members towards resources. 

While many base or post social media platforms focus on the big events which affect all individuals in the military, smaller unit level news and events mostly go unmentioned. During deployment of a unit, there is an opportunity to get links to available resources in the community but due to the lack of social media in smaller lever units, these events go unannounced. If smaller level units actively engage in social media, members won’t have to go through the stress of forgetting to inform their family members about the ongoing events within the units.

Recruiting

According to Cole –Miller, Ward, Fruhling, & Cooper (2016) the biggest percentage of potential recruits demographics that the military looks forward to recruiting can be found through social media. Mostly a number of potential recruits may not get access to TV advertisements since they are busy multitasking on the social media platforms through their smartphones. With the military opting to engage more on social media advertisements, they will reach a higher number of their targets within little time and might as well save millions of cash through switching from major media advertisements to digital and social media. Special units in the military could utilize social media in recruiting highly skilled persons by encouraging the applicants to continue sending their applications. The potential applicants, therefore, get a platform to acquire more understanding of what is necessary for commitment, skills, and duty involved which might improve the applicants’ quality.

Professional Relationships

There are some sites in the social media which specifically focus towards a professional relationship. LinkedIn, for example, allows networking of professionals all over the globe. It also allows the professionals to advertise their other abilities and skills and therefore if the military utilizes this avenue it could be very beneficial for enrollment purposes together with providing a platform for the service members who are transitioning out. By allowing professionals to create credibility on experience and skills on the online platform through the LinkedIn profile, individuals receive weekly messages informing them on specific interests from companies looking for professionals with certain skills and experiences for specific positions. This type of a social media application makes it possible to seek solutions of unique problems in the professional network. It is therefore important that the military departments encourage their service members to sign up on such platforms.

Training

By encouraging usage of the social media among the US military, they can adapt and benefit largely from the online resources. Much of the military compulsory annual training is set up in computer-based training platforms and integrating the social media comes with adequate opportunities. The military trainers may use e-mails, Google Drive and Dropbox to relay information and easily enhance two-way document sharing and advanced collaboration. Through such channels, the service members can acquire crucial benefits from the social media by receiving prior information to digest before the training sessions. Therefore, the social media enhances training effectiveness such that even after the training sessions, members can back up their training through wikis. The web applications together with the social media have made it easy for students and teachers to engage and collaborate which creates more confidence that the service members of the US military could benefit much through the platforms.

Medical Issues

Encouraging and fostering proper training and use of social media at all military levels extends the members’ safety by earlier identification of those who require the support of preventing suicide and additional behavioral health matters. By reaching out to social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, service members of the military receive early interventions through getting the right directions to counter-attack the depressions and health issues. The lower level units in the military departments can create social media pages where its members engage in various interactions and could figure out and solve certain problems. The social media platforms also offer service members an opportunity to interact with other people who pass through similar traumatic or posttraumatic problems. The establishment of such specific social media platforms enhances sharing and learning from other individuals’ stories. If the service members receive proper training and adopt social media, they can receive links to avenues of mental health treatments.

Discipline and enforcement of the law

The social media provides a great avenue to acquire evidence and support the Military Justice Uniform Code and discipline among the members of the military service (Mergel, 2016). The investigation sections can also utilize social media platforms to do undercover programs to infiltrate inaccessible gangs of drug traffickers and users. This enables them to detect suspects and end the criminal activities. The military together with the community could also benefit from the presence of a social media account that allows communication between the community and the service members of the military about the areas of interest. The military service members account can publish security and safety information to the members of the community early which builds trust from the community.

Conclusion

Therefore, it is clear that the service members of the United States military should be properly trained and encouraged to utilize social media. This is because social media is capable of helping in supporting leadership communication, family stability, recruitment process, professional relationships, training, mental health, discipline and enforcement of the law. Therefore, social media is the next big strategy to adopt for effective and efficient operations.

References

Cole-Miller, K. S., Ward, W. D., Fruhling, A., & Cooper, K. D. (2016). Social media policies in the Department of Defense—Do they address the risk?. Journal of Information Privacy and Security, 12(2), 93-102.

Cuccio, C. E. (2014). The Politics of Social Media in the Department of Defense; How DoD’s Status Changed From Friend to Defriend to Friend Again (Doctoral dissertation, Virginia Tech).

Mergel, I. (2016). Social media institutionalization in the US federal government. Government Information Quarterly, 33(1), 142-148.