We received a question for our panel via email from Roger Pociask (Twitter: @roger_pociask), managing director of the African Affairs Advisory Group, who is unable to make today’s event. Lindy Kyzer was kind enough to respond.

Here’s Robert’s intro and question:

My organization has offices in the United States and Africa. I have tweeted about U.S. Africa Command since the beginning of Twitter. While it is refreshing in recent months to see many subordinate military commands embrace social media, I see an absolute incoherence in how the Pentagon as an organization uses it to achieve its goals. Case in point: several weeks ago I sincerely attempted to have an open public discourse with @USArmyAfrica on the issue of #AFRICOM’s credibility and motive. This is something about which U.S. Africa Command is EXTREMELY concerned. When I pointed out some glaring PR inconsistencies the debate deteriorated towards freshman name calling at which point I disengaged. All this came from a real Army PAO whose mission I support and am trying to help achieve success. I received numerous private and anonymous direct messages from others even within DoD who have encountered the same thing. At this point, the hashtags #AFRICOM & #USAFRICOM (which I created) have been invaded by @USArmyAfrica and turned into nothing more that auto RSS twitterfeed blast machines for PR purposes which do nothing to further public discourse and in effect decrease the command’s credibility – while sadly increasing the risk of U.S troops on the ground.

The question is this: Does the senior military leadership truly grasp what social media is all about and how it is a force for truth akin to the pamphleteers of the 1770’s? Do they realize that if they see social media as another tool in the psychological weapons toolbox that it will backfire? Thanks for your comment on the issue.

Here’s Lindy’s response:

The issue of whether or not Pentagon senior officials really “get” social media is a good one, and can certainly be asked of most major CEOs, as well. Across the board I think we’ve reached a point where folks understand the power and need to engage via social media, but aren’t necessarily great at marrying that effort into their larger mission goal in a way that makes the platforms most effective. So, everyone wants to be on Twitter because it’s a great way to send out quick, timely updates, but they might not always understand that conversation and community building are at the heart of effective social media outreach. We @USArmy and victim of the same RSS-esque issues however, and why? We’re simply understaffed. A bad excuse, but a real one. With limited personnel, good conversation building takes some time and if you’re an overstretched public affairs officer – and especially one with a limited grasp of the medium – it’s clearly easier to push out one way communication.

From a senior leader perspective, we’re really working hard – and well – when it comes to get our most senior ranking officials on board with social media. In the case of U.S. Army Africa, I know first hand that Maj. Gen. Garrett, the commanding general there, is a proponent of social media engagement. But there is an element of resourcing and education that needs to take place in the public affairs field in order to do this well, and that’s an area where we’re struggling.

For the U.S. Army, we have three pillars in our social media engagement – presence, relavance, and penetration. Presence is just being there. That’s a “check” for most public affairs offices – they’re out there
engaging. Relevance is much tougher for us – how do we adapt “military speak” into real, social media conversations? How do we engage in good conversations and accept criticism in the social media sphere? We’re slowly getting there, but it demands effort and good strategy. Penetration is the final area, when we’ve gained prominence and succeeded in providing value-added engagement with our community, fully disseminating that information through the appropriate medium. For most of us in the military social media sphere, we still dance between the first two pillars of that model.

So, I think our senior leaders are starting to get it, but they’re senior leaders for a reason – they require high-speed staff and advisors who REALLY get the medium and can make it happen within their command. And that’s coming along, but at the slower pace of government. And where social media is being done poorly, it will backfire, or prove completely useless, and that’s a part of the education process that will hopefully help improve our efforts.

Hope that helps – this is a big, complex issue for us, and really the heart of why government sometimes struggles with social media.