The military services often pay lip service to embracing new media – sometimes to comical effect. But the Coast Guard, at least, is making a concerted effort to employ social networking tools in its official communication.
Among other things, the service is planning to phase in a new online portal that will be more social media-friendly. Adm. Thad Allen, the commandant of the Coast Guard (pictured here), has taken rather enthusiastically to blogging – you can read some of his recent posts here – and Coast Guard guard photographers and videographers are making an effort to keep their flickr photostream fresh.
So will the Coast Guard's embrace of social media boost its stature – or at least win it a few new friends? On a recent visit to the cutter Boutwell off Djibouti, Allen taped some – video shoutouts with crewmembers; those posts got a fair amount of love from milbloggers and other supporters. That may be the point: The Coast Guard does not have the resources – or the advertising and recruiting budgets – of the larger uniformed services of the Department of Defense. A push for more Facebook friends or Twitter followers may be one relatively cheap and effective way to get its message to a larger audience.
[PHOTO: U.S. Coast Guard]
