Liberty Wing was "Liked" a lot this year: Official Facebook page of 512th AW reaches new milestone

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  • 512th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  The 512th Airlift Wing reached a social media milestone today when its official Facebook page logged its 1,700th fan.

At the beginning of the year, the number of Liberty Wing Facebook fans stagnated in the low 800s.

With Air Force-wide social media efforts in mind, the 512th Public Affairs Office provided more emphasis on its Facebook endeavors, slowly garnering an additional 450 fans over the course of six months. By July, the page had a following of about 1,275.

According to the 2013 Air Force Social Media Guide, social media and social networking have evolved to become the primary communication methods used by today's Airmen, families and leaders.

Col. Raymond A. Kozak, the 512th AW commander, was instrumental in taking the 1800-person unit's Facebook page to the next level.

From the top down, he promoted the page via avenues such as staff meetings and e-mails. He also endorsed a program, which afforded each group and the medical squadron the opportunity to highlight something from their respective area on Facebook.

"We do a lot of amazing things in this wing, and each function plays a vital role in sustaining our strategic reserve capability," said Kozak. "I'm exceptionally proud of what we do, and using social media is a proven forum that helps us tell our story."

Following social media training and a couple of months, the handful of designated social media managers assisted with growing the wing's Facebook fan base by another 200 for a total near 1,475.

However, it was an active-shooter incident, which heightened the Reserve wing's culture shift toward social media.

After the Sept. 16 Naval Yard shooting in Washington, D.C., unfolded rapidly with social media, the 512th AW's public affairs team seized the opportunity to demonstrate the effective use of social media to larger audiences within the wing.

"The shooting was most certainly a tragedy, but I recognized instantly that this was the situation I needed to get more buy-in from the wing to embrace social media," said Master Sgt. Veronica Aceveda, 512th Public Affairs NCO in charge. "We already had the tool in place; we just weren't using it to its maximum capability.

For several weeks, public affairs provided social media insights and examples at weekly staff meetings, conducted individual social media training to senior leaders and briefed in mass at a commander's call.

The wing's social media awareness played a key factor in senior leaders being able to communicate with reservists before, during and after the government shutdown Oct. 1.
During the actual shutdown, issued guidance prohibited furloughed employees from updating traditional news sources, such as the wing's public webpage, leaving Facebook as one of the fastest methods to disseminate information.

Within two weeks, including the week of and after the shutdown, another 90 new fans "Liked" the wing's Facebook page, which topped 1,600 fans by mid-October.

Today, the number of fans for the 512th AW's Facebook page climbed to 1,700, marking an 11-month journey, which has doubled the wing's capability to communicate with its own wing family as well as the public.

"There's not a magical number of fans we're trying to reach," said Kozak. "We simply want to deliver our messages in sync with how they're being read today - with social media."




Below are a few statistics from the 512th AW's Facebook page.

512th AW Facebook fans:
- derive from all seven continents, including 45 countries, most being from the United States, some from Maldives, Georgia and Sri Lanka;
- are 65 percent men, which is 11 percent higher than Facebook's overall percentage of male users;
- mainly speak English, Spanish and Portuguese but there are a total of 34 languages reported, including Filipino, Slovak and Greek;
- and, the top read post this year, read by 3,314, was made Oct. 6, "... October UTA rescheduled to 19-20 Oct 2013."