CAMP HUMPHREYS, Republic of Korea -- More than 70 public affairs, marketing, and installation management professionals from across the Korean peninsula gathered at the Camp Humphreys Super Gym, March 16, to take part in the garrison's first social media workshop.
Colonel Joseph P. Moore, commander, U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys, opened the full-day event by welcoming those in attendance and offering insight into his own vision when it comes to social media communications.
According to Moore, the use of social media has changed the way he and his staff communicate with members of the Humphreys community and each other.
"Facebook, in particular, gives us the ability to build more personal and effective working relationships with members of the community," said Moore, "It also gives us greater freedom of expression, so we can work together to collectively resolve problems and answer questions in an open and transparent forum.
"In the past, community members might have had to wait for the next town hall meeting before they could voice their concerns, and that often led to frustration," said Moore. "Now, they can contact us via Facebook and receive an almost immediate response -- and that's a good thing for everyone."
Given that USAG Humphreys was recently recognized as having the best social media program in the Army, it's no coincidence the workshop took place here.
"We have some really talented people on our team and I couldn't be more impressed with the hard work they've put into building and maintaining our social media communications program," said Edward Johnson, the garrison's public affairs officer.
"As home to the largest construction project in the history of our Department of Defense, it's important that Camp Humphreys has an established and effective social media communications strategy," said Johnson. "Otherwise, we won't be able to keep up with the communications needs of our rapidly growing community."
The garrison's Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation marketing and public affairs departments jointly hosted the workshop.
While much of the day was spent on learning how to communicate effectively using social media sites like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and Wikipedia, participants also took time to network and learn from each other.
"I came here to learn more about social media, because it's such an important part of our lives," said Yoon, Hyun-gyu, an intern with Directorate of Plans Training Mobilization and Security. "Thanks to the workshop, I now have a better understanding of how to use it for communicating with our customers.
"This workshop gave me a good foundation of understanding how social media works. It has many benefits and I know a lot more about it than I did before," added Yoon.
"The most interesting part for me was learning about Facebook and how to manage its new Timeline features," said Jason Chudy, United States Forces Korea's deputy for public information. "The workshop gave us a great overview of social media and also provided enough details to make it useful."
Staff Sgt. Vincent Abril, a public affairs NCO with the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade, agreed.
"Flickr has a wide variety of photo sharing capabilities of interest to us," he said. "This workshop had good content about how to effectively reach out to our audiences. I thought the workshop was great and very informational."
"All of the work that went into putting this together definitely paid off," said Johnson. "We're already looking at ways to make it even better for next year."
Related Links:
United States Army Garrison Humphreys
United States Army Garrison Humphreys on Facebook
United States Army Garrison Humphreys on Flickr
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