Mastering social media later in life

Defence analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Andrew Davies, shares his discovery of social media and the benefits of becoming tech-savvy, albeit a little later in his career.

It was with some trepidation that the Australian Strategic Policy Institute ventured into the realm of social media. After all, we are an organisation that has made its name based on careful research and analysis, combined with a measured presentation of its findings. At first blush, the 140 characters of a Tweet doesn’t seem a good match.

But when the decision was made to start up a blog and the chance to become the editor came along, I thought it was a chance to learn something. Finding myself involved in the Web 2.0 blogosphere and the world of social media at an – ahem – relatively late stage of my career has been an interesting experience.

I’ll admit that I found it very easy to ignore the arrival of Facebook and Twitter on the communications scene. But now I find myself involved in both on a daily basis – and, to my surprise, find them worthwhile additions to my information management and communication strategies.

The trick, I think, is to realise that every communication medium has its pros and cons and – even more importantly – needs to have its content tailored to the delivery vehicle. Let’s start with our daily blog, The Strategist. Our research publications are anywhere from 2,000 to 15,000 words – a big chunk of reading in most cases, and not at all suited to an online ‘read over breakfast’ format. So we set out with the aim of providing pieces that were around 800 words and which delivered one or two key insights that readers would be able to follow up if they chose. The ability to link to other documents, and our own longer reports, works a treat in that respect.

One thing we didn’t foresee was the impact it had on our media presence. In the past, when there is a breaking story in defence, national security or international affairs, we’ve been at the mercy of someone else’s editor. A ten minute interview with a TV reporter with a number of nuanced or qualified responses gets cut to one or two sentences on the evening news that can give quite a different impression. But now we can get our own thoughts on the record in near real time. And in some cases our blog posts have been picked up and run as news stories in their own right.

Keeping the quality of the blog up, thus preserving our brand, is a challenge. We do that by being pretty rigorous in the editing stages and, in some cases, by saying ‘thanks but no thanks’.

Outright rejections are rare, but many pieces go back for clarification or for further analysis if they don’t meet the standard we set ourselves. We lose some would-be authors that way, but we see it as a ‘John West’ strategy. That said, we have gained a lot of new authors from around the world given our reach is further than before. This has provided us with new ways to collaborate and a new pool of experts with whom to connect and exchange ideas.

Once we’ve got the blog pieces posted, there’s the task of getting people to read them. The information marketplace is so crowded these days that it’s not a case of ‘build it and they will come’ so getting on the front foot is important. That’s where the other social media platforms come into play.

A well-crafted Tweet (from @ASPI_org) directing interested readers to the blog is actually more effective (and much more cost-effective) than traditional forms of advertising such as print media. We know because we tried it.

Now that most government departments, think tanks, university departments and well-connected individuals have a Twitter account, we can direct Tweets to those folk around the world who are likely to be most interested, as well as to our own followers. ‘Live-tweeting’ events in real time have also been another means to reach out to a wider audience, as our functions are mostly held in Canberra.

Then there’s Facebook. On our page we try to provide an experience that isn’t a replica of the blog or Twitter content (although obviously there’s an overlap). That’s an important principle – if visitors are finding the same content in multiple places, they’ll quickly tire of it. And getting the look of the page right matters; it has to be professional but welcoming, informative but not overwhelming. Thankfully I have a very switched on (and much younger) co-editor who looks after the ‘cool’ things (she’s @SecurityScholar on Twitter).

Six months into this exercise, I’ve learned a lot and now I’m sold on the possibility of being simultaneously current, analytical and entertaining. Of course, we still need to get the long-term solid research done to back up our social media presence, and that can be tricky when the temptation is to go for the snappy blog piece on the topic of the day. But the main point is that those pursuits aren’t mutually exclusive.

Now I just hope there isn’t a Web 3.0 around the corner that I’m going to have to learn about.

Dr Andrew Davies has been with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) since 2006. He has written extensively on defence capability and force structuring issues, including platform options for air and maritime combat, industry issues, decision-making in the Department of Defence. He has an ongoing interest in the future submarine and joint strike fighter projects, and his work on both has made an important contribution to the public understanding of those projects here and abroad. Before joining ASPI, Andrew was a post doctoral fellow in physics at Melbourne University and the ANU before spending twelve years in the Department of Defence in the areas of capability analysis and intelligence.