Last week I was surprised to learn that my unit has a Facebook page. Why? Because no one, not any FRG person, not any family readiness support official and not even my husband ever bothered to mention it.
But that’s OK, because as it turns out it’s pretty boring. There’s no information on there about upcoming, public on-post or community events. There’s no details about post resources or links to fun things for my kids to do. In fact, it’s pretty much the least helpful Facebook page I’ve ever seen. The only thing on there is some change of command pictures.
Which is confusing. I think it’s safe to assume that over 95 percent of the unit’s family members and spouses get the bulk of their daily information from Facebook. And so you would think that the unit would jump on this opportunity and, at the very least, post a message telling people to check their email for information considered too sensitive to stick on Facebook.
In the Army we have a person in each unit who is paid actual money to get information out to families. But even if she was interested in using Facebook to do so, she is at the mercy of the unit’s commander, who may not see Facebook as the important tool that it is.
In my mind, the best social media idea would be for the unit to use Facebook to point back to the information they store in the Army’s own, personal online FRG news hub called the “vFRG.” But not every unit has one of those, either.
It’s like they want families to not know what’s going on.
WHY?
One of our goals here at SpouseBuzz is helping military family professionals (as in, people who make a living off of helping you get information) get and share vital information. And we're obviously big fans of social media. So, tell us, does your unit use Facebook, Twitter or anything else?
Take our poll below to weigh in and check back later for results.
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