Navy + Social Media = Success

Members of the EVG team have been keeping a close eye on SlideShare, as well as posting our presentations on that platform. For the uninformed, SlideShare is a cool, very visual platform where you can find interesting, authoritative presentations on a wide range of subjects, from content strategy to defensive driving. One of our favorite channels is social media and how to use it effectively. So there was plenty of in-office excitement over a presentation that was posted on July 17, 2013 entitled U.S. Navy Emerging Media: CHINFO Virtual Symposium July 16, 2013. (CHINFO, for the non-Naval audience, refers to the U.S. Navy Chief of Information.)

Judging by the number of presentations the Navy has in their SlideShare account, they are no strangers to social media. I counted 40 presentations! So I was very curious to see what they had to say. The takeaway? The Navy clearly understands how to communicate on a wide variety of social media platforms, and they know why it matters.

One of things I found most interesting was the slide indicating their average monthly reach on seven different platforms. Not surprising, Facebook has the largest audience with 1.88 million. That’s a monthly reach of 7.5 million visitors. But equally impressive is the platform most social media strategists undervalue, Pinterest. Reaching 37,429 visitors a week adds up to a monthly total of nearly 149,000!

That led me to Google the Navy’s Pinterest account, and I discovered that there are three official Pinterest accounts for the Navy. There’s the U.S. Navy, which shares images and videos of globally deployed sailors. America’s Navy offers a look at what it takes to be “A Global Force for Good.” Navy Housing is dedicated to providing useful information (think floor plans) for housing on every Navy base, as well as boards about life as a Navy wife, homecomings and programs & services.

Fiercegovernment.com recently ran an interview with Sandy Gall, senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, who helps manage social media on the Navy’s chief information office emerging media team. She points out that Pinterest, because of its appeal for women, enables the Navy to reach audience members (moms, wives, girlfriends) that traditional mediums were missing. In the first quarter of 2013, the Navy began to take a more calculated approach to ‘pinning’ and tracking what pins were most popular. That effort has paid off with a 57 percent increase in followers, according to Gall.

We don’t often think about the Armed Services when we think about content marketing and social media. But they’re certainly thinking about it. By taking a page from their book, our efforts will be the better for it.

Kathleen Gossman – Project Manager