North Carolina National Guard Senior Leaders on Social Media

Category F: Outstanding Initiative in New MediaNorth Carolina National Guard Senior Leaders on FacebookFacebook.com/NCAdjutantGeneralFacebook.com/NCAirAAGFacebook.com/NCCSMFacebook.com/NCCmdChiefFacebook.com/NCCWO

North Carolina National Guard Senior Leaders on TwitterTwitter.com/NCTAGTwitter.com/NCAirAAGTwitter.com/NCSCSMTwitter.com/NCCmdChiefTwitter.com/NCCWO

Background Information

Mission Objectives

As the NCNG’s Public Affairs office continued to make strides in social media - NCNG senior leaders began to take notice, and wanted to develop alternative methods to communicate with the everyday Soldier and Airman. One segment of the senior leader’s Social Media mission is to utilize this valuable emerging media technology outlet to deliver NCNG’s message and meet strategic objectives:

- Provide ready forces to support Federal and State requirements – provides the community with real-time infor-mation and timely updates on what measures the NCNG is taking to meet these objectives. For example: • A monthly report on NCNG troops deployed is produced via the social media outlets to gain support of friends, family members and fellow Soldiers at home via posts to encourage morale at home and abroad. • When the NCNG was called upon for state duty (ex. during Hurricane Sandy), the leaders were posting updates to what type of operations the NCNG would be involved in. These posts were shared by emergency services and relief partner organizations, as well as informing our community and updating them on conditions and appropriate safety measures.

- Develop and participate in programs that add value to our members, families, employers, and communities. For example: • The Leaders’ Facebook pages allow members to send products and share messages to Soldiers and Airmen abroad via posts, photos or video messages. • Weekly strategic meetings within the Public Affairs office and among members of the command staff are conducted to develop posting schedules a week ahead and identify key NCNG programs or units to highlight capabilities of NCNG. • The senior leaders social media accounts highlight regularly a certain function of the NCNG such as Yellow Ribbon, Family Programs, Starbase, Tarheel ChalleNGe Academy, etc.

Target Audiences

With the senior leader pages, we look to connect with Soldiers and Airmen and their families, the reporters, stakeholders, and partner organizations interested in the NCNG story on Twitter and Facebook.

External Audiences

We have been able to connect with military enthusiasts via the senior leaders’ Twitter and Facebook accounts, other senior leaders connected in the social media world, and military organizations/military support groups on our Twitter and Facebook accounts.

In January 2012, the North Carolina National Guard launched Facebook and Twitter accounts for all NCNG senior leaders. North Carolina’s Adjutant General, Major General Gregory A. Lusk also launched a professional blog in October, and continues to reach audiences through his monthly video blog.

The initiative for the leaders to enter the social media world was an idea of Major General Lusk. NCNG’s two-star general would like the NCNG leadership to be transparent as possible when giving operational security considerations.

We’ve developed pages for the highest enlisted and officer’s for both the NC Army and NC Air National Guard so that we can continue to send out our command messages to even more of our Soldiers and families throughout the state of North Carolina.

Pages are updated with updates on the leaders visits(post-travel) to see deployed troops and State Partnership Program nations, policy changes, family support information, and more.

We’ve encouraged, and received senior leadership participation on their official social media presences. This brings out the personal aspect, provides exclusive content and allows Soldiers to have a platform to communicate with leaders they might not have the opportunity to otherwise.

Leaders will give shout outs to troops for a job welldone - which tends to mean a lot to them. The congratulated Soldier or Airman will normally tag themselves in the photo, or retweet themention on Twitter, increasing the exposure.

Senior Leaders also give their perspective on current operations that the NCNG is involved in.

We develop a weekly schedule for posting a week ahead, and will generate those posts, but the schedule leaves room for flexibility, which we call on-the-fly posts. Normally the senior leaders aide will produce these posts while working with the senior leader during visits, etc. Major General Lusk could be considered quite social media savvy himself and will post to Twitter and Facebook via his mobile phone on the way back from a visit, for example. We’ll monitor his account for SPAM, and any accuracy issues. He’s also responded to posts on to his wall.

We’ve developed standard operating procedures for senior leaders in social media, and in the future we see this becoming a more and more important part of our strategic communication plan, even as leadership continues to evolve.

Social Media Strategy for the week of: December 9 – December 15 (TAG)

Sunday – 9 Decem-ber 2012

Monday – 10 December 2012

Tuesday – 11 December 2012

Wednes-day – 12 December 2012

Thursday – 13 December 2012

Friday – 14 December 2012

Saturday – 15 December 2012

Theme: Subject to change based on the fly items

Honor Deployment update

Technology Families Tarheel Homecoming Tarheel challeNGe ECU Commis-sion

Twitter and FB suggestions to support the daily theme of the orga-nizational pages. Twitter

Retweet message from big Army/AF/NGB

Photo/Message to retirees

Happy 376th Birthday NG

Photo/message about Challenge

Facebook

Share photo of deployed soldier

Photo/Message to retirees

Photo from commissioning

On the fly – posted by Aide

-anything that adds to the daily theme or missions you are out on (photo, command message). Also, responding to national events, tragedies, etc.

Marketing StrategyThe North Carolina National Guard Public Affairs team developed Social Media business cards which listed the URL’s to all of the organization accounts, of which perspective fans can easily find all of the leader accounts. These business cards were distributed on missions, and special events hosted or attended by the NCNG.

Members of the senior leadership team also added the accounts to the signature block in their email.

Each one of the accounts promotes one another by providing links, and cross promoting on each network. The Public Affairs team has also added links to the public website - nc.ngb.army.mil - and on the NC Army Guard Knowledge Online.

Developments in Leaders Social Media Social Media is not going away, and NCNG leaders realize that. Major General Lusk is determined to stay ahead of the game, discovering new ways to reach out to the NCNG community. He’s recently published his own professional blog on NCNG’s public website.

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November

08

The View “From My Foxhole” is Up andRunningby on 11/8/2012 10:26 AMon 11/8/2012 10:26 AM

Well, I have off icially entered the “blogosphere” w ith the standing up of my off icial

blog! It’s called, as you can see from the masthead above, “From My Foxhole.” I hope

you’ll check back here periodically and take a look at my entries and maybe post a

comment. You can also sign up to be notif ied everytime there’s a new post.

This is just another w ay to communicate w ith our Soldiers, Airmen, Families and

Employers and talk about w hat our North Carolina National Guard is doing and how

vital it is to the people of this state and this nation. Also, let me know if you have any

ideas for a post by hitting the “Contact Us” link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Remember, you can also follow me on Tw itter at @NCTAG and on Facebook at

NCAdjutantGeneral.

This is something of a w ork in progress, and I alw ays w ant it to be fresh, so

please bear w ith me on the grow ing pains! The fact that I can update this from my

Blackberry virtually ensures typos w ill pop up every now and then. I’ve already

posted a few things here as w e tested the site over the past w eek. Thanks for

stopping by, and I hope you’ll do so again.

| | 1 Comment(s)

November

01

N.C. Leads Aviation Task Force “Guardian1″ in New Jerseyby on 11/1/2012 10:25 AMon 11/1/2012 10:25 AM

Let me take a moment to update you on the progress of our aviation assets

assisting our fellow citizens in the hard-hit regions of the Northeast. We did in fact

launch our three UH-60 Blackhaw k helicopters based in Salisbury and tw o Georgia

Army National Guard CH-47s. They left from our Army Aviation Support Facility in

Morrisville headed to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. The Aviation Task Force

is called “Guardian 1″ and consists of our helicopters, a command and control

package of four of our Soldiers from the 449th Theater Aviation Brigade in

Morrisville and 12 Soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 131st Aviation Regiment

from Salisbury. The entire package, led by North Carolina Soldiers, has six UH-60s in

addition to the Chinooks and has representation from Massachusetts and Connecticut

as w ell.

You can f ind pictures from the launch preparations at Morrisville at

http://w w w .flickr.com/photos/ncngpao/sets/72157631896991219/.

On the Air National Guard side of the house, w e have a C-130 from the 145th

Airlif t Wing in Charlotte in New castle, Del., helping ferry supplies and rescue

personnel. We expect that airplane back home sometime on Friday.

Bottom line, our Ready Team is very much engaged in the response and recovery

effort in the Northeast!

North Carolina Army National Guard UH-60

Blackhaw k helicopters from Company C, 1st

Battalion, 131st Aviation Regiment arriving at

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Posting and Monitoring toolsAll of our social media outlets work together to help support the NCNG’s command messages. To best accomplish this, and assure we get the best value for each, we use a few tools to assist with content posting and monitoring. Tweetdeck allows us to keep track of all leader accounts. Also, all accounts are connected to a smartphone device to ease timely posting from each.

In addition to creating more video blogs with increased content, including requesting submission from subscribers and video footage from his trips out in the field, Major General Lusk would like to begin ‘pinning’ on Pinterest.

He would like to create boards similar to that of General Ray Odierno, such as the ‘Army Values’ boards, but from a NCNG perspective. He’s asked for submission from fans and received many on his Facebook page.

YouTube.com/NCNationalGuard

MetricsUsing the template from National Guard Bureau Public Affairs Office, we produce a monthly statistical report to give the leaders a visual update on how their pages are doing. This report is posted around the Joint Force Headquarters building and throughout the command hall.

ConclusionThe North Carolina National Guard’s Leaders Social Media efforts encompass not only connecting and getting the command message to the Soldiers, Airmen, friends and families, but also to communicate with partner organizations and help streamline communications during emergency situations.

We provide our community with a perspective of the NCNG that traditional media may not be able to.

With the constant growth, and ever evolving world of social media, we are constantly looking for ways to im-prove our manner of getting the NCNG’s command messages out to the public. Our social media efforts work hand-in-hand with those command messages to:

1. Be a ready team of citizen-Soldiers and Airmen who are always ready, always there to protect and preserve the life’s and property of North Carolina citizens, defend our nation and secure our American way of life. - illustrated through our emergency operations and the move to streamline our strategic communications with developed hashtags, etc. 2. The more than 12,000 Soldiers and Airmen of the North Carolina National Guard are deployed to all 100 counties every day. - shown through the many organizational pages, senior leaders pages, and our promotion of them.

3. The North Carolina National Guard is the best bargain for our state and nation. - Social Media is a “free” outlet we’ve used to tell the story of the NCNG Soldier and Airmen.

Our efforts to embrace new technology as well as introducing our senior leaders to social media keeps us relevant in regards to military organizations and social media. It also allows us to be the one’s speaking for the organization, and as the leaders use the platforms, the “hear it from the top” perspective.

NCNG has constantly evolved our strategy, for example, altering what type of posts leaders share, and the frequency of what is posted on Facebook. On the other hand, we’ve learned and had to assure they were aware that posting as often as possible to Twitter and continuously interacting with our community is better.

NCNG has developed ways to communicate back and forth with our community on each network, sounding authentic and professional at all times, and generally, creating a self-sustaining community that we continue to share our story with, monitor, and grow. This is done by keeping a positive relationship with NCNG’s senior leaders, rather than by creating fabricated messages from the public affairs office.

Though the senior leaders’ following is not as big as other leader’s pages with larger organizations may be, the pages growth is organic, and those involved with the page have a working relationship with that leader, orare truly interested in what they have to share on social media.

The numbers continue an upward trend, and as new leaders come and go, some more social media savvy than others, they will be able to continue to move forth with the momentum we’ve begun to develop.

The North Carolina National Guard Public Affairs office looks ahead to numerous growth opportunities for our social media efforts and communications strategy as whole, for 2013 and for year’s to come.