To understand social media, it’s about the “street”, whether it’s a company or a revolution, and the most direct way in understand the immediacy of crowd sourcing, or massing protest is to review a commercial template that incorporates the allegiance to brand and connection to the street, be it Mao, Che, or Obama.

That said, in the commercial zone, look no further than Harley Davidson owning the street; with 3.5 million avid Facebook HD devotees, HD long ago turned their web site to their ridership. (think of this as cell phone text swarming) HD encouraged the ridership to post pic’s that showed attitude, bikes, life style. In essence, “you, the average rider are HD”. In doing so, HD acknowledge in the SM context that they could not control their image or message, so they enlisted the ridership to do so.

The ridership is loyal to the point, that they Tattoo the “HD” brand to various points on their body, sometimes in multiplies. This loyalty is comparable to any cult, CAS, particularly, AQ in that context.

But, in relation to the storied history of Harley Davidson Motorcycles it’s co opied- ingrained in the American psyche as the iconic free spirited outlaw, as a marketing strategy established with the formation of the company. The imaging of HD is the foundational underpinning of Harley Davidson current social media marketing program in context to the 110 years of freedom campaign, in that sense, its a SM strategy.

For eg. this past September, 2013, Harley Davidson Motorcycles was 110 years old. The company celebration is a worldwide affair, and as such, Harley Davidson is engaged globally across the following social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Vimeo, and its own expansive and interactive web site. Harley Davidson’s event twitter account is #HD110, launched in 2012 in China, for the event “Crossing Tibetan Plateau”, between Aug 04 - 09, was an international political and public relation success. (http://110.harley-davidson.com/en_US/events/china2012) And most recently in Goa, India http://110.harley-davidson.com/en_US/events/goa Instagram #HD110INDIA

Harley Davidson’s successful use of these two platforms is evident with numbers of a third platform used to promote its brand. Utilizing Vimeo as the video platform to showcase riders experience and Harley lore. AQ does this with its martyr program.
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Harley Davidson's established Facebook page is the company's fourth social media platform, and with 4.5 million fans, is easily one of the most popular contra brand marketers of America’s S & P 500 corporate elites. Harley Davidson with reference to social platform Vimeo, recognized there was a need for viewer content and set up “Ridebook”, a section where videos could be uploaded and shared with the rider base. HD behaves as a CAS SM system.

Eg: Ridebook is Harley Davidson’s intersection of brand to emotion and customer/rider connection, emphasizing the iconic free spirit, enhancing the Harley gypsy outlaw-esque myth, as the following statement readily illustrates. “Ridebook is the riding manual from the voice of those few who cherish the search for new scenery with the wind in their face. A glimpse into a stripped down lifestyle, free of the clutter and filled with style, quality, and the essentials”. Image = self actualization.

Ride book’s “Ghost town USA” video embodies all the classic iconic myth making of the American West. In doing so, Harley Davidson reaches back to our American idealized past to create the linkage to the riders, creating their own relationship with myth and legend on the back of a Harley. In “Ghost towns” Harley Davidson reminds us “there is a violent truth to places like this, where people struggle to survive”, Harley’s implied myth attachment, enriches its own lore of acquiring rough knowledge in forbidden places. http://ridebook.harley-davidson.com/#!/ghosttowns

This imaging is a continuing content thread in all things concerning Harley Davidson. In the video Iron & Resin 2013 teaser http://vimeo.com/53129614, released on March 27, as of April 3, has 16.3K listens, and is an equally compelling story filled with folklore and possible discover.

What is unique about this social media video platform usage is the available opportunity for customer engagement, participation, and the real sense of voice in the Harley Davidson experience, here the nexus of social media campaign, brand, and customer merge. Harley Davidson provides an avenue for the client to upload their video’s, to tell their stories of the open road, a second level engagement vehicle that encourages partnership and the ultimately the big prize, Brand Loyalty. “Your Video Belongs Here, Share a Moment or a Masterpiece”, the add on beckons, join free, click, and you are in.
Another interesting social media-advertising segment, included in all the video’s, is the age bracket of Harley’s ideal consumer it is reaching for. In the video “The Prohibition Tour” a group of diverse riders travel up highway 101, from LA to Napa, it’s cool, but the subliminal messaging was age and technology, as one of the riders present’s “his” story, he states how discovering a charging hook up for his iPhone on his Harley change the nature of his connection, by having the choice to listen to what he wanted to, rather than the “played out music on the radio”, equals choice, action, Harley Davidson.

According to The Media Audit, a majority of motorcycle owners are married (59.2 percent) with an average age of 41 years. Adults who own a motorcycle earn $77,714 in annual household income, a figure that is $12,424 higher than the household income for the average U.S. adult.

Considering the average Harley Davidson owner is 41 years old, and by contrast, those who use Vimeo are a generation removed, Harley Davidson social media program is succeeding in appealing to, and expanding its client base via these various social media platforms, platforms which are not all that familiar to Harley Davidson’s core clientele base in the age range 50-65 years of age. The social media platforms are familiar to this new generation of riders. Harley Davidson recognizes this and uses these social media platforms to recruit the next generation of riders, 17% of owners are 35 or younger, which means the company has made significant inroads to a younger demographic.
The video “Tomcats Barbershop” epitomizes this cultural hipness. The storytelling is actually a demographic profile verbally actualized, its shockingly honest in its brevity, combine with voices that are listenable, it is a pure message of identification, of who we are, what we represent, and where we belong. http://ridebook.harley-davidson.com/#!/tomcats

SM media new venue - social video

Small world......I think it was a bit over 3 years ago I met the young fella who kicked off HD's Facebook brand when he had only gathered a couple hundred K of fans and they were making a big push for their first million.

While they definitely control the release of certain content in a highly coordinated way, the majority of their Social Media efforts are community driven and HD marketing shaped.

I might have to dig up a Harvard Business Review article written by a former senior HD marketer who went freelance who wrote about different categories of online brand and community building that I think might be relevant to this discussion.

Gaming Industry and the social ENVIRONMENT
 

Yes on the MISO and IO Campaigns we have screwed the bucket from 40 to 100 ways. But a lot of this is at the highest level and not at the tactical levels. PENN you bring up a lot of great points with the way HD used SM. I'll tying this into terms of the The Gaming Industry and IO. I'm picking the Gaming Industry to compare it to the use of social media by militant/terrorist groups, because it falls closes to their model. In the nature of Al-Qaeda’s (AQ) sphere of influence and their use of the internet has changed, with how AQ operates as an independent organization, actual size, operations status, members, sympathizers, ideology, and their social environment. Weather they are going after a “homegrown radicalismy” or “homegrown terrorist/jihadist,” is utilizing the internet to reach out to a new generation and online activities. Just as the Gaming Industry (GI) deploys pop-cultural art work and slogans to their online messages to reach out to their members and sympathizers, so do militant/terrorist groups. Both AQ and GI are groups who implement their advertisements, propaganda, promotional trailers and filmed suicide bombing clips online, all for what; drive that message and recruitment. AQ and other militant and terrorist groups are using available “channels” of social media to promote its ideology and to communicate with its members, sympathizers, bomb makers and even leadership. This is why I point to the same lessons learned can be taken from how the Gaming Industry promotes its products by all means (channels) of the internet with their social media advertisements. The gaming industry uses YouTube for game trailers or “movies” on new games, Facebook with game profiles and groups, and Twitter to encourage gamer feedback and advertisements. Just as Gaming Industry has adapted in their methods, so has terrorist groups in theirs. They are using the social media platforms as they did the classical websites to message boards, to forums, blogs and emails to reach the youth of the nations they are in due to IMO the youth being more of a mobile “group” than a computer or internet café group. This is why I say it is more of the ENVIRONMENT and how we should be looking at this in the future. The tie to future of pre-deployment analysis and studies for some, not all and differently not every time or place. Yet does this tie any on the internet in terms of social media's role in protest, movements and revolutions that have happened or will happen?

Civil Affairs Information Operation (OI)
 

Okay Oakie I'm going to ask you some question so we can look at CA IO within a given country, this is my understandings of what should be happening. I'll take you SME within CA Ops. Weather it really happens, who Frinkin really knows.

So if a CAT is going into country X, then you want to do some kind of targeted, planned, and coordinated observation and evaluation of those specific civil aspects of the environment of the country. Maybe doing some ASCOPE/ PMESII Matrix, some Datamining, collection on country X Govt, IGOs, NGOs, IPI and military. I would say that the purpose of collecting civil information would be to enhance situational understanding and facilitate decision making. CAO planners, in coordination with the Company or Battalion level civil-military operations center (CMOC). Just like I would be looking at my Core Task at the mission at hand, we take civil affairs Core Tasks and the CMOC conducting civil information management, especially when integrated into a SOTF or TSOC and Embassies. Now I saying just like SF, CAT and CMOCs have to do some kind of IPB and/or IPE before their deployment. Every commander has to visualization and achieve a clear understanding of the force’s current state with relation to the enemy and environment (situational understanding) developing a desired end state that represents mission accomplishment and the key tasks based of pre-deployment studies.

So if you take this topic of The Role of Social Media in Mobilizing Political Protest, Movement, and Revolution. Along with Social Network Analysis (SNA), as the term is being coined, how would you as a 38A tie your "conventional methods" to enable your CAT & CMOC to study how and why social groups operate, interact and behave in particular ways?

Radicalisation in the Digital Era
 

This may be of some use to the discussion. From RAND Europe,
Radicalisation in the digital era: The use of the internet in 15 cases of terrorism and extremism - Ines Von Behr, Anaïs Reding, Charlie Edwards, and Luke Gribbon, RAND: http://bit.ly/1773kQs

"We live in a digital era. In the UK alone 85 per cent of homes have internet access. As society increasingly embraces the internet, so opportunities for those wishing to use it for terrorism have grown. The internet offers terrorists and extremists the capability to communicate, collaborate and convince. In recent years, European policymakers, practitioners and the academic community have begun to examine how the internet influences the process of radicalisation: how a person comes to support terrorism and forms of extremism associated with terrorism"

my intention was is to illustrate the success of SM in relation to corporate marketing tied to a devout consumer base; in my mind that is AQ.
They are a complex adaptive system, whose hierarchical structure is related more to social and tribal connection, than authoritative direction.
It is what MC Chrystal and his staff presented, that was rejected by the admin, that led to his resignation, or at least, that was the story presented in our seminar on CAS.
That said, SM is successful in the hands of AQ and other non state groups, because it is a ubiquitous- low tech- commo, everyone has a cell phone...it, the association, has no formal structure, and reinforces contact nods base on familial and group association, not alignment to cause, cause is an adjunct.
Framing in this context supports like groups competing for the same limited resources, understanding that need opens areas for exploitation .

EDIT TO ADD: I just realized what thread this is 18F. I am completely out of my lane. MY sincere apologies.

PENN,

Maybe in my writing I came off wrong, I understood the illustration you were painting between HD and what they were or are doing on the internet and with SM. I JUST THINK we the military should look at the Gaming Indrustry and their foot print and usage of SM and how they networked. You can take just about any Indrustry and look at how, say: Sony, Nike, Gatorade or any clothing line. The best thing for our MISO NCOs and Officers to study is how thing are done online here in the US Indrustry and how things are in their AORs within SM and the internet.

Like Peregrino and Brush Okie pointed out, we are missing the boat on this big than $&?! I feel you have to study the social side of the country your going to. Does it play a big part, small part or what does it play.

Penn brought up a point, yes this is posted in 18F thread. Unless Admins have issues, I didn't post this in Technology news or General Discussions because I'm bring this topic to stimulate thought among 18F and 18 series on how internet, social media play within our planning, coordination and execution of missions. Using the title of The Role of Social Media in Mobilizing Political Protest, Movement, and Revolution. How you as a person, maybe in the military, a support, an enabler or just a person working at Walmart. Like dualforces pointed, there are organizations, people, groups looking at this.

So with all of this rumbling of me. I'm all for anyone posting great dialog over what you know, think, feel or believe would add to this. I see this as 18Fs I know don't know how to do go tactical battlefield analysis. None this is my thinking, why. Most don't have a collection plan for their base. Most don't know how to think combat with HUMIT with basic Force Protection. Operations drive Intelligence and we all say Intelligence drivers Operations. But IMO we do more dart broad planning and sync operations at all levels. So from this soapbox, like it has been said, we behind on our online analysis and focus. DoD stood up a special organization just to study how the internet will play into the future battlefield. USASOC is conducting its own studies, along with AF, Navy and many others. I feel there are many different people here, some military, some in the IT fields, some in INTEL and most retirees from many fields that can provide insight.

I want dialog on what you think the Role of Social Media in Mobilizing Political Protest, Movement, and Revolution. What does Social Media have in the role with warfare maybe. From all of this, maybe guys will go back and bring up what we discuss and stimulate thought in team rooms, section cages or offices on internet and social media.

I find the discussion stimulating and hope it continues.

:lifter Me too and I am learning here! I wonder if we could expand this a bit and hold a little practicum for those who want to participate. What I am thinking is a project could be assigned, the class participants could open a Twitter account (for example) under a pseudonym, engage a target audience, and let the game begin. Report back in 30 days with what is learned. Not only would that be fun, we might see a few surprises too. MtnGoat, Penn, and Brush Okie could be the mentors if willing.

I maybe be able to offer some insights. I work with Nike, VANS, and the gaming industry within what is referred to as the Global Influencer area. This area is the Tip of The Spear, so to speak, within culture, arts and commodities. Without getting too philosophical, I do see the major impediment to SM or any consumable created with intent on influence, is governmental layers. Much like Nike. The global influencer groups within large corps. hire my company almost as proxy to speak to the discerning consumer. Communications, product, consumables are highly sophisticated within our flat, hyper consuming world. Nike or other brands want authenticity that can only exist with a language spoken by the man on the ground.

Great discussion. I think a helpful way to re-model the thought, is to think of SM not just as a cyber paradigm. SM with influence can start with cyber and continue its life cycle into, say a pair of sneakers or film. Close the loop with a tangible and keep feeding. All the components need to align through focused branding to make it through all the noise.

This is an example of AQ utilizing an influencer media outlet with huge bandwidth>
VICE: British Nationals Fight with al Qaeda in Syria
http://youtu.be/7jD146Rx80k

Funny thing, I've actually contacted SOCOM to participate or formulate something for VICE around SF. My request made it through one email.

Feel free to contact me if I can give a hand. Cross pollination of ideas, industries, is much in need.

Great points!! We are thinking the same I feel, just at different waves right now.

I wish we had native speakers, but this is the hardest part of all of this. As a military, our native speakers will be on the battlefield and elsewhere. If we are so lucky to have a guy that is a 2/2/2 and able to pull off fully understanding the written language with all the community "talk" with its dialects, jargons, slang; pidgins or argots, and idiolect to name a few. He would be great, yet would he be behind a computer. The manning and the man hours spent will not add up, No man power equal lack of man hours, which like business nothing gets done. IMO, Sometime your not looking to "learn" from the people on their culture or motivations. Maybe just research on their key viewpoints behind the motivations as a person or group. There are a number of programs that will look at foreign languages within social media a look for your key words for you to research. This is just like what you can do with google alerts. So from this, then I say you can go with the human touch on key "alerts." But keeping in mind that social media may not start or drive a movement or revolution, yet looking at what is going on social media or with social networks can help in many different avenues. Looking at your ENVIRONMENT.

YES, I'm in the same boat here. We need to look at what is going on with the ENVIRONMENT on SM and conduct Social Network Analysis (SNA) to find out who, what, when, where and how "things" are driving, influencing and motivations for the movement/revolution. Looking at what ROLES are contributing to the movement. On the personality side, I don't know how much you can "profile" off of social media. I know people do it, but at our level I don't see it happening. I feel that you can develop a lot based off what post someone has posted and what you have found. I think you could find demographics a lot faster as far as who is who and using what.

But with everything, this takes a team to do this.This is one side we are missing out on, The team. Just like you CA units, the CMOCs and how they are to play into a CATs deployment and execution of missions. If you making Company level or Fusion Cell, you can just have a bunch of ASAP Analyst, HUMINT or CI guys, or Linguists. You have to have people that understand the cyber world. I say you add to add the new 35Q cryptologic network warfare specialist and the 25D cyber network defender to the SF Battalions and to some of the new levels coming up. Yes you can also take the f3ead targeting process and turn it into a cyber one. You can't think you can't "talk" to someone and in turn, why not target them in cyber. Gen McChrystal to this to the best level with Gen Flynn. I think the best team would have to have your INFOSEC guy, journalist, medical field, analysis, CNO (Computer Network Operations) , Geospatial Intelligence Imagery Analyst, Logisticians, maybe even anthropologist just name a few. Big business does this for marketing, pulling different walks of the business to research and come up with a action plan, our engagement plan, for our SM ENVIRONMENT.


This whole FINDING contact and business side I'll get into what I think we can be using and doing as far as with SM and movements. The SM network approach has so many possibilities, just like businesses do with online marketing. Then to look at the exploitation, analysis and Metadata of SM is just crazy. As far as the RESCOM and those CA issues, I feel for you My Sir.

So how do you communicate online? Your you just a forums person like PS.COM and others? You Facebook? LinkedIn? Have a Twitter account and check you feeds? You SnapChat with your girlfriend, so those pictures are gone in 15 seconds?

So with everything you use and do, post, read, visit online. Do you think something like the Arab Spring could be supported by your activities? Which accounts or Groups do you follow, how could they effect or affect the support base of the movement? Would your activities be conducive through your “channels” of social media to promote a ideology and to communicate with members, sympathizers, bomb makers and even leadership?

My input on practicum, I'll be post some free site that you can do a lot with once people hit on them in the discussion. I think they will open your eyes as far as what you can do online.