The document outlines six steps for optimizing U.S. Navy social media sites, including registration, managing access, updating passwords, ensuring operations security, planning, and monitoring metrics. It emphasizes the importance of only allowing authorized personnel access and maintaining strong passwords. Regular reviews and adjustments are recommended to align with evolving strategies and audience engagement.

1. Social Media
Spring Cleaning
April 2015 1
Prepared April 2015 by CHINFO OI-2 Digital Media Engagement

2. AGENDA
Spring is here, and now is a
good time to do a little spring
cleaning to optimize your
command’s social media site for
success.
We’ll discuss six steps to ensure
your site is ready for the year ahead:
1. Navy.mil registration
2. Admin and app access
3. Passwords
4. Operations Security
5. Planning
6. Metrics
Of course, you don’t have to
wait until spring to spruce up your
site.
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3. Each official U.S. Navy
social media site must be
registered with the Navy’s
social media directory on
Navy.mil.
In addition, each site is
required to have disclaimer
and user agreement text,
which can be downloaded
from the social media
directory on Navy.mil.
1) ENSURE YOUR SITE IS REGISTERED ON NAVY.MIL
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Registration is required.

4. Personnel come and go.
Be sure only the people who need to
administer your social media sites have the proper
level of admin access.
You always want to have at least two
administrators in case one admin can’t access his
or her account. Plus, this helps personnel
transition access when they leave a unit. It is
almost impossible to regain access to a social
media site admin backend if you lose your
credentials.
In addition, review which apps have access to
your social media site. You may have authorized
an app that doesn’t need access anymore.
2) AUDIT ADMINISTRATOR AND APP ACCESS
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Audit access.

5. You should frequently change your
passwords, and now is a good time to do it. Each
social media site should have its own unique,
strong password that isn’t used on another site.
A strong password should:
• Be at least 8 characters
• Be significantly different from previous
passwords
• Use a combination of upper and lower case
characters, numbers, and special symbols such
as !,@,#,$,%, etc.
• Not include your user name or name
• Not contain a full complete word
3) CHANGE YOUR PASSWORDS
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Use a strong
password.

6. OPSEC is an all hands responsibility.
Take the following steps to avoid
OPSEC breeches at your command:
– Identify personnel authorized to post content
to social media sites and ensure they are the
only individuals with access to those sites.
– Establish local procedures to ensure that all
information posted on social media is
releasable.
– Ensure all information posted is in accordance
with local public affairs guidance and Navy
public affairs regulations.
– Monitor your command’s social media sites
for posts that violate OPSEC and if there is a
violation, document it; remove the
information.
– Conduct periodic training with Sailors and
families on appropriate versus inappropriate
social media behavior.
4) OPERATIONS SECURITY
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Practice OPSEC

7. You should have a plan about how you use
your social media sites and how they
complement your communication plans.
Update your SOP or business rules to
reflect changes in how you’re using the social
network – whether it is because the network
changed or your strategy changed.
Current SOPs or business rules make it
easier to train new personnel and transition
from one administrator to another
administrator.
Among other things, your plan should
explain the site’s purpose, goal, audience,
content, tone and crisis management. If you
don’t have a plan, now is a good time to create
one.
5) CHECK YOUR PLAN
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Have a plan.

8. Many social media
sites offer built-in analytics
that measure information
such as followers, reach
and engagement. You
should regularly monitor
these metrics to determine
what is and isn’t working.
At least once a year, do
an extensive review of your
site’s analytics to
determine whether your
audience changed, content
isn’t resonating, or peak
posting days and times
shifted.
6) METRICS
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Determine success and measure it.

9. CONTACT
U.S. Navy Digital Media Engagement
703-614-9154
SocialMedia@Navy.mil
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