Success Stories: United States Coast Guard Commandant and Social Media
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Lt. Cmdr. Tony Russell, the press secretary to United States Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen. The Commandant is the highest-ranking officer in the USCG.
In September 2008, Allen’s office created Commandant’s Corner 2.0 – a dynamic Web site that incorporates many Web 2.0 tools: a blog, a Flickr stream, a YouTube channel and a Facebook fan page.
Prior to September, Russell said that the Commandant’s static Web site received about 1,000 visits and pa
United States Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen. (Image Courtesy of USCG)
ge views per week. Since the Web 2.0 tools were added, that number has skyrocketed to about 6,700 visits and 15,000 page views per week.
“Across the board, we’ve been very pleased with the outcome we’ve received,” Russell said.
Blog
The centerpiece of Commandant’s Corner 2.0 is Allen’s blog, iCommandant. Allen and others write the blog, though Allen himself reviews all posts before they’re posted, according to Russell.
“What he doesn’t actually write, he sees, approves and is actually aware of everything,” he said. “If a blog post ends in ‘ADM A,’ it’s definitely his.”
Russell admitted that not everyone will agree with what Allen says on his blog, but they are open to comments about it.
“We will pretty much post everything we receive, as long as you’re respectful,” he said.
Russell then stressed the transparency aspect of blogging.
“The neat thing about social media is what you can do,” he said. “In our case, we feel the transparency is important. When you’re doing the blog that’s under the name of your service chief, it’s important.”
YouTube
“We’ve been on YouTube for over a year,” Russell said. “When we released the video of the ‘miracle on the Hudson,’ we got 750,000 hits.”
Russell was referring to dramatic video from a Coast Guard camera of the landing of US Airways flight 1549 when it ditched in New York’s Hudson River in January.
The USCG has been on YouTube long before the GSA’s recent terms of use agreement with the popular video site. Russell said that the Coast Guard’s legal staff worked with YouTube on an agency-specific agreement.
Flickr
“One of the biggest surprises is the popularity of the Flickr page,” Russell said. “I only have to manage one photo page. It feeds to Commandant’s Corner 2.0 and to Facebook.”
Some of the most popular photos on their Flickr stream are not the professional photographs but “just the Admiral with a camera phone, or his staff with a camera phone,” he said.
Russell said the Allen’s original Facebook presence was a standard profile page for, not a fan page.
“We transitioned to a fan page,” he said. “We can’t control who ops-on as a fan. But it still gives us as a presence.”
Russell added that Allen still has a personal Facebook profile that he uses to communicate with his friends and family.
As of posting time Thursday, Allen had over 2,300 fans on Facebook.
The Future
Russell was excited about the upcoming launch of a main blog for the entire Coast Guard. He said that Allen will still blog on iCommandant, but the focus of it might change.
“The beauty of social media is there are more tools than you can possibly use,” Russell said. “You can’t use them all, but we can choose the ones that best support our mission.”
