Taking a Page from the Army’s (Social) Playbook

It’s December Content University at GB, and we’re stoked about it. This month, we’re participating in the MarketingProfs’ Content Marketing Crash Course series on content marketing.  Friday’s session gave some of the basics around content creation strategies, why a content generation strategy is important, and advice on how to successfully approach a content marketing strategy. We were excited by one example in particular featured today as an organization “doing it right.”  The Army (yep, that one) has a terrific site, Army Strong Stories, which is an aggregated blog featuring posts from in the Army who wants to contribute. The blog’s goal, as MarketingProfs identified it, is to recruit service members and give an honest, first-hand look at what it’s like to be in the Army.  The interesting and inspiring thing to us about this site is how free of restrictions the site is:  No criteria to become a blogger.  No filter to what a contributor can say.  No removing negative posts. Why so open? According to the webinar moderators, the blog needs to be as authentically representative of the Army experience.  And if a negative post discourages someone from enlisting, it might be OK, because that person may not have been a good fit. We loved this example, because it underscores our philosophy that a brand is actually reflected as much by customers as the company.  Bully to you, Army, for letting your brand speak through your constituents.