Until about two years ago, the US Navy was like most large organisations involved with social media—it primarily used social networks to tell the world about itself. But suddenly, with one dramatic crisis, the brass decided that the Navy must actively engage people through such channels. It was 2009, and four Somali pirates were fleeing their bungled hijacking of an American-flagged ship after the USS Bainbridge interrupted the theft. The pirates, in a commandeered lifeboat, held hostage Richard Phillips, captain of the attacked ship. Navy sharpshooters killed three of the pirates in one stroke, ending the crisis.

Social networks lit up with opinion, concern and criticism during the four-day ordeal. Until that time the Navy had been using social media—primarily Twitter—as a broadcast and listening tool, but personnel watching the online conversations saw that they needed to be more engaged. They waited until the captain had been saved to join the conversation in earnest.

Following that incident, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead ordered interactive media to be integrated into the organisation's overall public communication and recruiting efforts. Admiral Roughead realised not only that the Navy needed to participate in how its brand was perceived online but, equally important, that there was a lot to gain by being able to track its brand rather than to track the channels themselves.

Today, the Navy's marketing efforts are aimed at generating recruits and on retaining service personnel. For instance, the Navy's NavyForMoms.com, provides a forum in which parents can ask advice of each other and questions of the service. It had about 42,000 members in 1,400 groups and 8,200 blog posts at the end of 2010. While not the only tool for retaining sailors and keeping their families happy, social media is a potent and growing tool used to accomplish both tasks.