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SACEUR: the value of social media
I’m an enormous fan of using social media.
I am on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter,
a number of other social networking sites. The reason is simple.
We have to reach broad audiences.
Today there are 850 million people on Facebook.
It’s crucial that we use those networks
in order to reach out and move the message.
Our message is a simple one: NATO as a force for good in the world.
I think we’re doing good work across the spectrum in Afghanistan,
in Libya, in the Balkans, in Baltic air-policing,
in counter-piracy, on and on,
but in order to maintain support for those operations
we have to tell that story. We can use traditional journals,
we can use the media and newspaper articles,
but frankly if we want to go directly to the global population,
we have to use social media. Is there a risk in doing that? Of course.
In any cyber circumstance, there are the possibility for hacking,
for setting up false websites,
for counter-efforts that undermine what we are trying to do,
but broadly speaking the plusses very much outweigh the minuses.