The U.S. Navy Facebook page aims to increase public understanding of the Navy's mission and rationale. The primary audience includes those interested in joining the Navy as well as veterans and supporters. Content on the page should educate audiences about the Navy's activities while encouraging enthusiasm. Administrators are responsible for monitoring the page, responding to comments, and removing any inappropriate posts according to the commenting policy. Metrics and lessons learned will be used to improve future content planning for the page.

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U.S. Navy Facebook Business Rules
March 2015
Purpose
The U.S. Navy Facebook Page (http://www.facebook.com/USNavy) serves as the official
page for the Department of the Navy on Facebook. The page is one of several official
social media properties that facilitates communication with key Navy stakeholders and
allows for near real-time feedback from those stakeholders and a channel for Navy
response as appropriate.
Goal
Increase public understanding of the U.S. Navy’s mission, purpose and rationale behind
certain decisions with increased focus on “informing influencers.”
Audience
Followers of the U.S. Navy Facebook page come from a wide variety of backgrounds,
but all share one thing in common — an affinity for the U.S. Navy. The majority of
active fans are young men and women interested in joining the Navy, family members,
veterans, and supportive Americans, which make them all potential key influencers on
Navy issues. While active-duty Sailors are, at times, active on the page, they are not as
active as other stakeholder groups and therefore are not considered the primary audience
of the U.S. Navy’s Facebook page.
Content
Content shared on the page should attempt to increase the awareness and understanding
of what the Navy does by sharing valuable content and hosting relevant discussions on
those topics. The content shared should also invigorate followers’ enthusiasm for the
Navy and encourage them to be champions of the Navy’s message within their own
communities. Content should be a mixture of current events and naval history, and should
be aligned with the CNO’s tenants, SECNAV’s priorities and other communications
priorities. OI-22 will maintain the social media schedule with draft posts to be published
to the Facebook page; the schedule is subject to change.
Tone
The tone of the U.S. Navy Facebook page is intended to be informal and upbeat, using
popular Navy colloquialisms as appropriate. Depending on current events and the real-
time state of the Navy, page administrators should use their best judgment to set the tone.
For example, if the Navy is responding to a crisis where lives are more immediately at
stake, a tone reflective of the gravity would be appropriate.

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Roles and responsibilities of administrators
OI-2 personnel are the primary administrators of the U.S. Navy Facebook page. In
addition to publishing posts, they also periodically scan for any inappropriate content and
engage with fans as appropriate. More specifically, OI-22 will:
• Publish scheduled and approved posts in accordance with the content schedule
• Include appropriate links and tags in posts
• Be responsive to current events and changing needs of content to be published
• Interact with fans who comment on posts in general nature
• Congratulate and welcome fans who have just joined the Navy
• Encourage fans interested in joining the Navy and point them to recruiting
resources
• Thank fans for their engagement and for sharing their stories and opinions
• Remove inappropriate content immediately
• Any content posted to the site in violation of the comment policy
• Any posting from any user that appears to put operational security at risk
regardless of the source. Follow up by alerting the appropriate authorities.
• Any public postings, regardless of the source, that contain sensitive personally
identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers, medical case
numbers, home phone numbers/addresses, credit card numbers, or any other
sensitive personal information that could put an individual at risk
Subject matter expertise
OI-22 personnel will inform appropriate subject matter expert of potential issues of
interest. Any posts from the public that could provide insight or indicate sentiment on an
important issue outside of OI-22’s subject matter expertise should be copied and
forwarded to the appropriate subject matter expert for further coordination and
monitoring.
Management in a crisis
During times of crisis, Facebook administrators should monitor and update the U.S. Navy
Facebook page from their location at that time. Emergency updates, links to authoritative
government information, and timely preparedness and recovery information should be
posted at regular intervals. Due to the Navy’s large fan base, administrators have a
responsibility to update followers on all breaking and critical information provided by the
military, Federal, state or local governments. This increases the distribution of critical,
time-sensitive information to those who need it most, regardless of whether they are
Navy stakeholders.

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Commenting policy
The following comment policy is publically available on the “info” tab of the U.S. Navy
Facebook page:
Welcome to the U.S. Navy's Facebook Fan page sponsored by the Navy Office of Information. This
page is intended to provide updated information and discussion on the U.S. Navy. Please visit our
official homepage at www.navy.mil.
While this is an open forum, it's also a family friendly one, so please keep your comments and wall
posts clean. In addition to keeping it family friendly, we ask that you follow our posting guidelines
here. Comments and posts that do not follow these guidelines will be removed:
- We do not allow graphic, obscene, explicit or racial comments or submissions nor do we allow
comments that are abusive, hateful or intended to defame anyone or any organization.
- We do not allow solicitations or advertisements. This includes promotion or endorsement of any
financial, commercial or non-governmental agency. Similarly, we do not allow attempts to defame or
defraud any financial, commercial or non-governmental agency.
- We do not allow comments that suggest or encourage illegal activity.
- Apparent spam will be removed and may cause the author(s) to be blocked from the page without
notice.
- You participate at your own risk, taking personal responsibility for your comments, your username
and any information provided.
- For Official Use Only (FOUO), classified, pre-decisional, proprietary or business-sensitive
information should never be discussed here. Don’t post personnel lists, rosters, organization charts or
directories. This is a violation of privacy.
The appearance of external links or "Liked" pages on this site does not constitute official endorsement
on behalf of the U.S. Navy or Department of Defense.
You are encouraged to quote, republish or share any content on this page on your own blog, web site
or other communication/publication. If you do so, please credit the command or the person who
authored the content as a courtesy (photo or article byline can be U.S. Navy or MC2 Joe Smith, for
example).
Thank you for your interest in and support of the men and women of the U.S. Navy.
For more information visit the DoD Social Media user agreement at:
http://www.defense.gov/socialmedia/user-agreement.aspx.
If you have a media query, please contact the Navy Office of Information News Desk at 703-697-
5342.
If you would like information about joining the Navy, please visit http://www.navy.com/ .
Removal and blocking policy
Comments or posts on the U.S. Navy Facebook page wall that violate the comment
policy will be removed. Prior to removal, the administrator will take a screenshot of the
post and save the file with the date and time of the post as the file name. The screenshot

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should be provided to OI-22 for archiving and will be saved to the share drive. Posts in
violation of comment policy can be removed by administrators without fan notification.
If a follower publically objects to having their content removed, the administrator that
removed the post should respond to the fan explaining the rationale behind the removal
and citing the posting policy.
If a follower repeatedly violates the comment policy they may be blocked from making
future posts to the page. Blocking someone should not be done lightly and only after
extensive deliberation. The administrator may choose to contact the individual who
repeatedly violates the comment policy to inform them that if their behavior continues
they will be blocked. However, notification is completely optional and a repeat violator
of the posting policy may be blocked without warning. If an administrator has someone
they think should be blocked they should discuss with the OI-22 department head before
blocking the person.
Metrics and evaluations
Facebook Insights will be used as the main source of metrics and evaluation of the U.S.
Navy Facebook page. Metrics and lessons learned will be incorporated into future content
planning. Deeper audience analysis will be conducted as needed.
Page settings
OI-22 page administrators are the only users authorized to change settings on the U.S.
Navy Facebook page. The page is currently configured to allow all fans to post content
directly to all pages of the site as long as that content is in compliance with the comment
policy. This open policy will be continuously evaluated to ensure that posts are not
abusive of this privilege and detract from the purpose of the page.
Liking other pages
The U.S. Navy Facebook page should only “like” other government and military
Facebook pages. Liking a commercial page could be considered as endorsement.
Scheduling content
All Facebook posts that need to be scheduled should be scheduled using Facebook’s
native scheduling tool.
Linking
All links shared on Facebook should be shortened using the standard link shorter, which
automatically converts long URLs from .gov and .mil websites into 1.USA.gov short
links.
Deleting or editing posts
Once a post is published, it is available on the Internet for all to view and consume. As a
general rule, the Navy will not delete posts or alter the original post. Deleting or altering
posts are not a best practice, does not completely remove the post from the Internet, and
can make the U.S. Navy account seem deceptive. If misinformation is posted to the
account, a new post should be drafted to correct the previous post.