We gave you our best reasons why your organization’s social media (like all things) must match your command team’s tone.
This last post was light on “how,” so here’s our follow-up. Here are three tangible steps you can implement today.
- Listen to your command team as much as humanly possible. Where do they communicate to groups? New member introductions. All-hands presentations. CONOP briefings. Promotions and award ceremonies. Meetings with other commanders. FRG forums. PT formations. Do they sing in the shower? You get the point. Be present, take notes, and learn their themes and tendencies.
- What do they talk about the most? Your leaders have a couple key topics they easily return to. They may not even know they do it, but since you’re listening, you’ll catch it. Maybe your commander is all about adaptability or empowerment. Maybe the CSM is ready to drop some resiliency and grit bombs. If these topics are becoming overplayed or meaningless, feed them rephrased packages to keep their favorite topics fresh. If it’s working, keep it going. A short tweet about resiliency may get fewer likes than your so-clever GIF, but you’ll build a stronger body of work in the long run.
- Draft your writing with the same font your commander uses in email. This is small but easy to try. One of my former commanders always wrote in bold, purple font – size 14 Arial. When I wrote with the same font, it looked and felt like his words. If something seemed off, I’d notice right away.
Want to call yourself a “strategic communicator?” Then communicate something worth being seen, learned and shared. There’s no worthy strategy in gimmicks.
(Photo by Lara Poirrier, DVIDS)
