Posted on 08/11/2006 6:11:36 PM PDT by SandRat
CAMP FOSTER, OKINAWA, Japan (Aug. 11, 2006) -- The Marine Corps has established a profile on the popular social networking Web site MySpace.com in order to spread interest and boost its recruiting mission, according to officials from Marine Corps Recruiting Command.
The Marine Corps recruiting profile features videos, desktop wallpapers and a link that helps visitors contact a recruiter through Marines.com, the Corps' official recruiting Web site.
More than 14,500 users have signed up as friends of the Marine Corps on the popular site, which boast 98 million registered users.
"The objective of advertising on MySpace.com is to generate awareness of the Marine Corps and direct interested men and women to the Marines.com Web site for more information," said Sgt. Brian J. Griffin, community relations chief for the Marine Corps Recruiting Command's Public Affairs Office.
The Corps' overall goal is to put individuals in contact with a Marine recruiter who can answer questions and screen interested potential recruits. Since its creation in February 2006, the MySpace.com link has led 50,000 people to Marines.com, according to Griffin.
Over the years, Marine Corps recruiting has taken advantage of new technologies. In more recent years, a lot of focus has been placed on television and the internet. With the growing popularity of blogging and online social networking, the Marine Corps has stepped up to tap into the new medium.
In 2004, recruiters from Recruiting Station Los Angeles, Culver City sub station, would get 25-30 contacts a month through Marines.com, according to Staff Sgt. Ernie Mena, a former recruiter with the station who is currently the armory chief for 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, currently serving as the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit's battalion landing team. Mena said he has seen the Marine Corps' use of computers and the internet develop rapidly during his career.
"Most of us didn't have computers when I joined, but now they're everywhere," Mena said. "MySpace is a great tool to attract young adults nowadays because most of them spend a lot of time behind a computer."
"The Marine Corps and J. Walter Thompson, the Corps' contracted advertising agency, continually evaluate opportunities and mediums to spread our message of opportunity to young men and women," Griffin said. "The MySpace.com Web site came out of this process as an appropriate medium to reach our target market."
The Marine Corps also advertises on MySpace with banner ads.
The Army, which currently advertises on the site, has plans to launch a similar profile in the near future, according to a report by the Associated Press. The Air Force also advertises on the site but doesn't currently have any plans for creating a profile.
So far, the Marine Corps has spent $112,000 on the Myspace.com advertising campaign, Griffin added.
MySpace, in its current form, was created in 2003 by Tom Anderson and was sold to News Corp. in 2005 for $580 million. It is currently the 6th most viewed Web site in the world, according to Alexa Internet, a company that provides information on Web traffic.
The Marine Corps now has a profile on the popular social networking Web site MySpace.com featuring videos, desktop wallpapers and a link that helps visitors contact a recruiter through Marines.com. More than 14,500 users have signed up as friends of the Marine Corps on the popular site.Oh the left is sooooooooo gonna hate thiiiiisssssssss.......
I finally have a good reason to create a MySpace account.
The problem I see here, is that MySpace resembles web design from 1998 or so.
I don't know and it's not listed in the story at the source.
Thank you, I had not seen that earlier.
Thank you, I had not seen that earlier.
Got it now
My husband is a Recruiter. We got to our PCS station here in Wooster OH 5 months ago. My husband says this is the hardest job he has ever had and he went to Iraq! Crazy enough he said he would rather be deployed than doing this right now. It's tough so I hope this site helps take the pressure off a little.
The difficulty all stems from the NEA and the MSM.
That little movie they play is pretty cool!
So,... go to MySpace and/or http://www.usmc.mil and tell them.
For the last fiscal year the Marine Corps made 105% of it's recruiting goal. As a whole they are getting the job done but individual numbers at RS's have to look good so people at the top can look good and get promoted.
The pressure to recruit people is immense. You wouldn't believe. My husband is a hard corps Marine and comes home sometimes at midnight and is dog tired. He is really hating this job and he's only been doing it for 5 months.
Oh I believe it after 20+ years in the Army.
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