Using social media to promote open government initiative and manage OPR for military organizations

Abstract

This study seeks to evaluate how the use of social media, particularly Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, can be used to fulfill the requirements of the Open Government Initiative and also help build relationships between government organizations, such as the military, and their target publics including future and current military personnel and their families. Currently there is little to no research on the use of social media for relationship building and reputation management, particularly for military organizations. The results of this study will help fill that gap while providing public affairs officers with the knowledge to formulate theoretically and practically sound social media plans that will improve the quality of relationships with their publics. The findings from this research were used to create a social media plan that focused on the dimensions of satisfaction, transparency, participation and collaboration while also incorporating relationship management for 2016 Cadet Summer Training for a military base located in the southern region of the United States.