LFAA hires civilian Facebook/Twitter expert

[kratz]

With all the cut backs, it would have been interesting to read how much this contract will be for her to work from home.
Erin Berube  is a Facebook and Twitter expert? with no military experience.

link CBC.ca

East coast army hires Twitter, Facebook expert
Civilian will manage Land Force Atlantic's online accounts

CBC News
Posted: Nov 26, 2012 6:43 PM AT
Last Updated: Nov 26, 2012 6:41 PM AT

The Canadian army's east coast branch has hired a civilian to tweet and Facebook for the troops.

Major Mark Gough is the media contact for Land Force Atlantic Area, but said he needed outside help for using social media.

"None of us are experts in social media. We all have our own Facebook pages, individually, personally. Some of us engage in Twitter, but none of us have used this in an organizational sense," he said.

He said it's not a tool for recruiting new members, but a way to better inform the public about what their army does every day.

The 7,000 personnel in the region include regular forces and reserve members in all four Atlantic provinces.

more at link

The article goes on to list the three accounts she will be managing:

Erin Berube of Simple Social Media will work from home and manage three social media sites:

@LFAA_Comd (Twitter)

36 Canadian Brigade Group (Facebook)

Land Force Atlantic Area (Facebook)

She has no military background and said it has been a steep learning curve.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Makes one wonder what else a Major P Aff O is up to that they can't keep up a Twitter feed and a couple of Facebook pages.  Not meant as a smart-a** comment, just wondering what else is in a media officer's in basket to need outside help for this kind of thing.

I remember "inform the troops" podcasts out of NDHQ a while back produced by media experts who had next to no military experience - not great, in spite of the level of subject matter expertise of the folks interviewed.  It'll be interesting to see if this works any better.

 

[Nfld Sapper]

:facepalm:

Really ....

 

[mba2011]

I saw this, and I was fairly surprised.

WADR its not that complicated. There are enough young NCM's and officers that could take the time to do the job.

I am a OCdt going to university through ROTP. This summer I had a few weeks between course and school starting again so I was employed at Greenwood in the OR. I am not a LOG O or in an air trade, it just is the base I am posted too, and it made more sense (and cheaper) that I be employed there for the 10 days rather than be sent on TD to somewhere like Pet, Edmonton or Gagetown to do something related to my trade.  I did PA and recycled old paperwork for a week. I did learn a fair bit about the paperwork I was dealing with, information that will help me later in my career, but it wasn't something directly to my trade. If the CF needed someone to work with social media,I would've gladly worked on the CF's twitter feed. There were a couple of Pte (R) doing EWAT at the WOR as well. The five of us were all under 25 and we all use twitter and Facebook daily. If the CF had asked, we all would've taken care of social media.

It wouldn't take much time, The Canadian Army Facebook Page administrator makes +/- 5 posts a day. If you asked, you'd find mbr's willing to spend the 20 mins a day to make posts on behalf of LFAA.

It's not something that requires much training, and because its going to the public, it wouldn't require a higher security clearance.

IMO there's cheaper, more logical ways to accomplish this task than spending money on civi consulting firms. Any PAO who uses Facebook or Twitter in their personal life could do this job.  This is just my  :2c:

 

[Harris]

It's more than just the maintaining of the accounts.  There is analysis involved of the actual accounts as well.  For example, are the tweets reaching the intended audience?  Is it even worthwhile to have an account?

You'd be surprised at the amount of hoops that need to be jumped through to have these accounts.  The tweets must be bilingual for example.

 

[DAA]

And what about Recruiting?  Where is Recruiting?  I know Recruiting tweets and when they do, it is weeks, if not months out of date!!!  What happened to forces.ca "Chat" where applicants could actually speak with a Recruiter?

 

[Harris]

WADR its not that complicated. There are enough young NCM's and officers that could take the time to do the job.

If the CF needed someone to work with social media,I would've gladly worked on the CF's twitter feed. There were a couple of Pte (R) doing EWAT at the WOR as well. The five of us were all under 25 and we all use twitter and Facebook daily. If the CF had asked, we all would've taken care of social media.

It wouldn't take much time, The Canadian Army Facebook Page administrator makes +/- 5 posts a day. If you asked, you'd find mbr's willing to spend the 20 mins a day to make posts on behalf of LFAA.

IMO there's cheaper, more logical ways to accomplish this task than spending money on civi consulting firms. Any PAO who uses Facebook or Twitter in their personal life could do this job.  This is just my  :2c:

I have to disagree with you on nearly all your points.

Yes you are familiar with twitter and Facebook.  Are you also up to speed on the Area Commanders, priorities and main messages he wants to get out to the public?  Would you know what should and should not be posted?  The civi company isn't making the posts.  They are running the sites, providing advice on the use of and content, and analyzing them to see if they are even read or worthwhile.  Can you do that?  Do you have the analysis tools/software to do so?

You say there are pers ready to volunteer to run sites.  I have asked pers to help out with the Unit site and guess how many volunteers I received?  None.  Not a one.

As for the PAO doing the sites, what if they're not familiar with Facebook or Twitter?  Hell, I can barely get anyone to use Word properly or paste a link into an email rather than sending me 11 Meg attachments (received one Thur that killed my inbox until I went in on Sat to clear it out).

The senior leadership, in general, is not Internet or social media savy.  They have to hire the expertise to show them how to use the tools.

Ever try to use Facebook or Twitter on an issue BB?  Have fun with that.

 

[Harris]

And what about Recruiting?  Where is Recruiting?  I know Recruiting tweets and when they do, it is weeks, if not months out of date!!!  What happened to forces.ca "Chat" where applicants could actually speak with a Recruiter?

LFAA HQ does not run the recruiting in the Area.  Your comment has nothing to do with the topic, but it does point to why LFAA is trying to get the expertise it needs by contracting out.  The leadership needs to be educated and people in house can't do that because most don't know themselves.

 

[mba2011]

That's a fair point. But it still isn't so complex or time consuming it couldn't be solved another way (rather than hiring a communications firm). You done't need to hire a separate firm to see the hits on your twitter or FB page. In high school, I helped the company I worked for with their FB page. Facebook gives you a weekly report on how many views your page has, what their ages,genders, locations are. Its free and given to you by FB. They use the information because they sell advertising. Google does the same thing with their AdSense service. Analysis doesn't require spending thousands on an outside firm.

If the CF is needing it done better then it was done before hiring someone to do it, there has to be a cheaper way to do it. The mbr doing it doesn't necessarily need to know the Commander's intent. You wouldn't need to know the CoC has a larger strategy to recruit X number of recruits from a specific demographic over the next 4 years. You just need to know what the general ideas of the post. For example if you were to get a list of topics or Army News articles to post about, it wouldn't be hard to do write posts regarding those articles. You can take the articles from Army News and write a post in everyday language that appeals to people on civi street with the link to the Army News article at the bottom.

IRT PA O's running the sites, I would bet that there are DE Officers or even officers who went through ROTP, that are fairly well versed in social media. Not to play on the whole stereotypes about generation gaps, but if you're under 30, you probably use FB daily in you're personal life. So those officers are likely fairly internet savy.

I'm not saying this is the absolute best way to accomplish this, but IMO its smarter and cheaper than hiring a firm to do this job.

 

[DAA]

LFAA HQ does not run the recruiting in the Area.  Your comment has nothing to do with the topic, but it does point to why LFAA is trying to get the expertise it needs by contracting out.  The leadership needs to be educated and people in house can't do that because most don't know themselves.

Oh but my post does have to do with the topic.  Who is next?  LFQA, LFCA, LFWA, MARCOM, AIRCOM and where does it end or does it?  Maybe we should go to unit level tweets and facebook pages...

 

[Jarnhamar]

I found Facebook worked extremely well for keeping in touch with soldiers in a reserve unit.

 

[George Wallace]

I found Facebook worked extremely well for keeping in touch with soldiers in a reserve unit.

As do many other individuals and organizations....... :nod:

 

[Strike]

Armourmike, the issue with using OJTs to run the sites is that you lose continuity.  You want someone who's going to be around for a long enough time so that the FB page is run the same way and the person then also gets familiar with regular posters and helps to make the FB page a living page with its own personality.

Twitter is more of a tool for the media than anyone else and can be done by any one person really.  At least in Western Area, it is more a tool to direct people to new postings on their web pages.

 

[OldSolduer]

OK What genius approved this?

Never mind..... :facepalm:

 

[mba2011]

Armourmike, the issue with using OJTs to run the sites is that you lose continuity.  You want someone who's going to be around for a long enough time so that the FB page is run the same way and the person then also gets familiar with regular posters and helps to make the FB page a living page with its own personality.

Twitter is more of a tool for the media than anyone else and can be done by any one person really.  At least in Western Area, it is more a tool to direct people to new postings on their web pages.

That's a good point re continuity on FB. However does it require an outside consultant? Maybe using OJT's isn't ideal, but given the current climate for cutting costs, do we need to be spending $300 dollars a day to have a civi consultant manage 2 FB accounts and a twitter feed for 8 months?

IRT the LFAA twitter feed, the vast majority of the tweets are just that, links to the LFAA FB page, an Army News article or a DND internet page.

 

[a_majoor]

Evil thought:

give the Facebook account to the PSYOPS crowd to play with. They can practice messaging and analysis to their heats content.....

(Yes, I know we are not supposed to do PSYOPS on the Canadian Public...)

 

[dapaterson]

Evil thought:

give the Facebook account to the PSYOPS crowd to play with. They can practice messaging and analysis to their heats content.....

(Yes, I know we are not supposed to do PSYOPS on the Canadian Public...)

Exactly.  Then it's called Public Affairs  >

 

[Strike]

That's a good point re continuity on FB. However does it require an outside consultant? Maybe using OJT's isn't ideal, but given the current climate for cutting costs, do we need to be spending $300 dollars a day to have a civi consultant manage 2 FB accounts and a twitter feed for 8 months?

IRT the LFAA twitter feed, the vast majority of the tweets are just that, links to the LFAA FB page, an Army News article or a DND internet page.

Speaking from experience, the Area HQ PA shops just don't have the manpower to manage a FB page (or 3) with all the extra that entails, as well as handle the rest of the day-to-day activities AND all the pop-ups and mini-fires that happen all the time.

Exactly.  Then it's called Public Affairs  >

DP - Shhhh! Don't let the guys at ADM(PA) hear you say that!  >

 

[brihard]

Evil thought:

give the Facebook account to the PSYOPS crowd to play with. They can practice messaging and analysis to their heats content.....

(Yes, I know we are not supposed to do PSYOPS on the Canadian Public...)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who immediately thoguht of the IA crowd.

33 CBG has an NCO who works in the PAff cell who manages the brigade Facebook site. Last I heard they got him on one of the intro level public affairs courses or some such. Why not do exactly that? Put an internet savvy reserve NCO on a three year contract, put him on a PAff course and the Target Audience Analysis course run out of PSTC and there you go. That's half an hour out of his day, and the rest of the time he does whatever other task a brigade or area HQ has in abundance for administratively competent NCOs.

 

[cupper]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who immediately thoguht of the IA crowd.

33 CBG has an NCO who works in the PAff cell who manages the brigade Facebook site. Last I heard they got him on one of the intro level public affairs courses or some such. Why not do exactly that? Put an internet savvy reserve NCO on a three year contract, put him on a PAff course and the Target Audience Analysis course run out of PSTC and there you go. That's half an hour out of his day, and the rest of the time he does whatever other task a brigade or area HQ has in abundance for administratively competent NCOs.

That would be logical. Thus a non starter. ;D