DoD Publishes a Common Sense Approach to Social Media
The long awaited Department of Defense Social Media policy was
announced with much fanfare today and it is an incredibly well thought
out common sense approach that has public affairs officers world wide
rejoicing. It has been a long time coming for the evangelists of new
media in the ranks who have been battling for access or trying to find
allies to help them push into social media but this policy was worth
the wait. I have been one of those evangelists myself for the last three years
after the terrific team at the Army Web Team sold me hook, line and
sinker on their efforts to tell the Army story on YouTube, Flickr and
iReports. Eventually, their efforts grew to include Facebook,
Twitter, Delicious and a host of other platforms but on any given day
we would come to work and find our access cut off causing our IT
department to spend the day furiously fighting to get us turned back
on. When Price Floyd, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Public Affairs, rolled out DTM 09-026 today signed by the Secretary of
Defense it solved the agony of hundreds of communications
professionals in all of the services around the world. Its simplicity belies the power of the directive. It states that the
"NIPRNET (the unclassified network) shall be configured to provide
access to Internet-based capabilities across all DoD Components." With that single sentence the Marines are no longer blocked from
social media sites which single-handedly killed all of their social
media based outreach efforts last September. Army PAO's will no longer
have to find the latest version of the DISA memo to submit with their
specific IP addresses and configurations for each and every social
media page they wanted to use for official purposes. Memo's that were
routinely lost or arbitrarily denied. Hopefully now a fuller regulation will follow and field manual's that
lay out the best practices and tactics, techniques and procedures that
so many professionals have been learning through trial and error. My
company is just finishing a study of military Facebook pages that
shows the immense need for standardized content practices and rules as
a staggering number of pages have little or no contact information,
terms of use or clear identification as official pages anywhere to be
found. Congratulations to my former colleagues and our many military clients
as they are now free to pursue all of the different channels available
to tell their story to the American people, build stronger military
communities, recruit future service members and connect with world.
announced with much fanfare today and it is an incredibly well thought
out common sense approach that has public affairs officers world wide
rejoicing. It has been a long time coming for the evangelists of new
media in the ranks who have been battling for access or trying to find
allies to help them push into social media but this policy was worth
the wait. I have been one of those evangelists myself for the last three years
after the terrific team at the Army Web Team sold me hook, line and
sinker on their efforts to tell the Army story on YouTube, Flickr and
iReports. Eventually, their efforts grew to include Facebook,
Twitter, Delicious and a host of other platforms but on any given day
we would come to work and find our access cut off causing our IT
department to spend the day furiously fighting to get us turned back
on. When Price Floyd, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Public Affairs, rolled out DTM 09-026 today signed by the Secretary of
Defense it solved the agony of hundreds of communications
professionals in all of the services around the world. Its simplicity belies the power of the directive. It states that the
"NIPRNET (the unclassified network) shall be configured to provide
access to Internet-based capabilities across all DoD Components." With that single sentence the Marines are no longer blocked from
social media sites which single-handedly killed all of their social
media based outreach efforts last September. Army PAO's will no longer
have to find the latest version of the DISA memo to submit with their
specific IP addresses and configurations for each and every social
media page they wanted to use for official purposes. Memo's that were
routinely lost or arbitrarily denied. Hopefully now a fuller regulation will follow and field manual's that
lay out the best practices and tactics, techniques and procedures that
so many professionals have been learning through trial and error. My
company is just finishing a study of military Facebook pages that
shows the immense need for standardized content practices and rules as
a staggering number of pages have little or no contact information,
terms of use or clear identification as official pages anywhere to be
found. Congratulations to my former colleagues and our many military clients
as they are now free to pursue all of the different channels available
to tell their story to the American people, build stronger military
communities, recruit future service members and connect with world.
