Aaron Bresnahan posted on February 01, 2011 00:14
February 2100 Navy
By Aaron Bresnahan
As many of you know, January observed the gathering of Surface Warriors at the national conference of the Surface Navy Association. I’m sure that the number and diversity of attendees was as ever-increasing as in past years. For those in the Surface community, this is a great thing; but there are a few things that AUSN can learn from this as well. One takeaway that I gleaned is that “face-toface” participation increases when you more effectively use social networking and other related electronic media.
Social networking usage with its versatility has taken off exponentially in the past few years. In fact, Facebook alone has boasted of having more than 500 million users worldwide. With usage numbers like these, the networking medium is here to stay. The question is how can AUSN take advantage of this communication channel in order to increase our own connectivity and at the same time support the Navy Department’s agenda? The new AUSN Communications Strategy tries to make sense of this and looks to you, the membership, to help us be more successful.
Social networking can enhance the way our association leverages its brand. The Association of the United States Navy “brand” has incredible scope and potential. If used properly, social networking has the ability to increase our brand visibility and ultimately increase our impact with “Big Navy.”
Besides Facebook, there are several other social networking sites with a bit of notoriety, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and MySpace. For example, LinkedIn is a professional networking tool that connects trusted contacts and fosters the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and opportunities within a broader network of professionals. LinkedIn used to focus solely on individual networks, but it now allows for the creation of groups that can be restricted by organization. To this end, AUSN has already established group affiliations on both Facebook and LinkedIn. The next time you are on-line, please do a quick search and ask to join....
However, let’s take this one step further. Every social or professional networking site must be actively managed or actively driven by its members. All of these social and professional networking sites are basically designed to get users engaged. They allow users to post their own content, and these sites need the networks to take on lives of their own. This approach differs dramatically from the traditional Web site, which often contains static information and resources with relatively little, usergenerated content.
For those of you have been to the AUSN.org Web site during January, you might have seen a slightly new layout. The main purpose of the layout change is to facilitate your ability to interact with your leadership, fellow members, and other social networks. Furthermore, the AUSN Web site has some new social networking tools built-in. This will be particularly beneficial to you for accessing exclusive, “members-only” content.
AUSN encourages user-feedback and wants you to create and maintain accounts on other social and professional networking sites. We have provided visible links to these off-site networks, thus enabling you to gain valuable information and resources from as many like-minded associates as possible. We hope that you will become more actively engaged. For those of you wondering “where does it end,” we realize that new social networking sites seem to be created all the time. Having a link to every possible social networking site may not be the best approach. For a social network to be successful, it must be “active.” Therefore, the best short-term solution will be for AUSN to maintain a presence on just a few of the mostactive sites.
As time goes by and our ability to leverage our social networking capability increases, I look forward to the day when our “face-to-face” networking conferences get larger and larger. By enhancing the brand and getting members more actively engaged through these virtual chapters, AUSN ultimately increase our effectiveness and dedication towards...Standing the Watch for Your Navy and You!