It’s no secret that the military has been hurting in recent years. With two wars going on, recruitment levels have been at all time lows. In order to raise awareness and boost their public image, the various departments have turned social media to reach out.

Image courtesy of U.S. Army on Flickr

The Army, Navy and Air Force all have Twitter accounts, blogs, podcasts and YouTube channels. The Marines have a Twitter account and a YouTube Channel and the Coast Guard has a YouTube Channel. In terms of following Social Government’s best practices however, most of the services fall behind.

The Marine Corps is beyond inactive on Twitter. It has no followers, no updates, and is not following anyone. Beyond that, its updates are also protected. Their YouTube channel features only recruitment videos and has no comment section.

The Navy is not much better. There is some diversity of content on YouTube (it’s more than just recruitment efforts) and someone updates the Twitter feed. Unfortunately, there is no effort to engage followers in conversation and the Navy seems to see it primarily as an RSS aggregator.

The Army is uses new media in a similar fashion to the Navy. It updates its Twitter account regularly, but again uses it as an aggregator. However, its YouTube feed is much better, offering even more content in addition to its recruitment videos. It also has a great Flickr stream featuring (non-combat) photos from around the world.

The Coast Guard (though now technically part of the Department of Homeland Security) is conspicuously absent from Twitter. Which is terribly unfortunate, as it arguably has the most amount of relevant information to give Americans — weather advisories, search and rescue operations, etc. It does have some informational videos on YouTube, but it definitely needs a bigger online presence.

Then we get to the Air Force. I suppose it is natural that the service tasked with cyberspace warfare should have the best new media presence. The Air Force has an entire agency devoted to working on their new media involvement, the Air Force Public Affairs Agency (AFPAA). Their Twitter feed is lively and active, joining followers in conversation. On YouTube, videos include everything from practical jokes to History Channel-like specials. They have also set up a blog (with comments) outside of the .mil domain. It also includes links to stories in the mainstream media relating to the Air Force, whether they are good or bad.

It is good to see at least one branch of the military taking new media seriously. Perhaps through this involvement we can all gain a greater respect and admiration for our men and women in uniform.