Air Force Civil Engineers Social Media
The Challenge
How might we leverage social media as a communications tool for equipping and retaining an organization of 50k+ Air Force Civil Engineers?
When I joined the project team as a Social Media Analyst, the Air Force Civil Engineering social media channels were used to share leadership messaging from the Headquarters Air Force down to newer Airmen in the field. However, audience engagement across the different platforms (Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter)) were very low, and the Instagram account in particular only had about 7k followers. As a result, there were concerns that digital communication efforts to raise awareness about the Civil Engineering mission were not reaching the intended audiences.
Results
Air Force CE Social Media Revamp
This posed an opportunity to revamp the Air Force Civil Engineers social media presence and ensure our platforms were being used effectively. Throughout the two years I spent on this project, some key results include the following:
Leading creative and user generated content campaigns that developed an online community for Civil Engineers and ultimately improved audience engagement. Notable campaigns were ones tied to commemorative months as we invited our audience to share stories and photos of their fellow Airmen.
Evolving brand identity across social media channels by establishing brand guidelines for all social media products.
Increasing audience reach by growing the number of @airforcece IG followers to 13k and incorporating LinkedIn as part of the portfolio of communication channels.
User Generated Content
A critical part of the @airforcece accounts was featuring our Airmen. As we continued to build our digital community, we wanted to give Airmen the opportunity to contribute their own content. This is an example of a user generated campaign I led to celebrate Black History Month, where we coordinated with leadership at Air Force bases to identify individuals who were interested in participating.
Air Force CE Brand Identity
In order to align all messaging related to the Air Force Civil Engineering organization, it was critical to have standardized branding across our social media products. This is a promotional video I developed from concept to production. I wrote the script for the narration, completed video editing using Adobe Premiere Pro, and designed the thumbnail in Figma.
Creative Campaigns: Around the Air Force Academy
As part of efforts to drive engagement, I developed concepts for short-form video series that would be easy to film and interesting to our target audience. Inspired by series like ‘Open Door’ by Architectural Digest or ‘MTV Cribs’, I directed a concept called “Around the Shop”. This series would allow Airmen to see what daily life was like in different career fields or at a different Air Force base. This example has a slightly different take, instead showing what life is like at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado.