After almost two years on the job, Sergeant Major of the Army Dan Dailey is ready to enter a new phase: social media.
The SMA set free his first tweet into the world on Friday with a special message to troops past and present.
"We wanted it to be on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, in honor of Veterans Day," he told Army Times in a Thursday interview at the Pentagon.
Up until Friday, most of Dailey's experience with social media had been contacting Facebook to take down dozens of fake accounts bearing his name and photos, most of whom were using his identity to woo unsuspecting women, then ask them for large amounts of money.
Unlike other services' leaders, Dailey had shied away from creating an online presence, but not because he has a problem with social media.
"I don’t like to fail at things," he said. "I have this utter fear of failure which drives me to complete competitiveness in everything I do."
So he bided his time, pushed out the initiatives highest on his to-do list and did some ruminating on which platform would best help him communicate with soldiers.
Dailey and his team settled on Twitter for its short-and-sweetness, he explained, with the ability to send out bite-size thoughts and updates where he can share Army news, his own wisdom and engage soldiers for their feedback.
"I don’t want a site where you can go and see all of the new initiatives from the sergeant major of the Army," he said. "You should be hearing that from Sgt. Dailey, you know?"
He also didn't want an "SMA Doing Stuff" kind of gallery, though he promised there would be plenty of tweets about his travels and conversations with soldiers.
"I’m not a social butterfly with regards to sharing all the photographs of Sgt. Maj. Dailey in my personal life," Dailey said. "I equate Facebook with the analog version of – it’s like dropping your family photo album off in the company area and just letting everybody pick through it."
In the meantime, a troll got out ahead of Dailey's team and launched @FakeSMADailey on Oct. 26, satirically posting Dailey's "Top 10" leadership tips and other unfiltered "thoughts."
Dailey laughed off the competition, though, and said he looks forward to some back-and-forth with the mystery tweeter.
Keeping it light
So Twitter it was. But the next step would be coming up with a strategy: Would Dailey post himself, or let his team craft his voice? Most likely, he said, he would come up with the messages and let his spokesman post them.
Would Dailey post only Army News Service stories, or would he post interesting articles from independent outlets?
"If it’s appropriate," he said. "I’m not a regurgitator of news, so I’m not going to do that in most cases -- unless it’s a positive story highlighting something one of our soldiers has done."
And who would he follow? Probably Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Army Secretary Eric Fanning and other top Defense Department officials, he said. What about soldiers?
"Yeah, I guess. Sure, why not?" he said.
"He will," Master Sgt. Michael Carden, his spokesman, chimed in.
There are also plans to respond when soldiers tweet to Dailey, he said, and Dailey floated the idea of quarterly Twitter town halls like he's done through official Army accounts.
He also doesn't want to be the social media police, though there won't be any tolerance for abuse on his page, either.
"There’ a level of inappropriateness going on on social media and I don’t tolerate the stuff," he said. "I don’t want to be part of it and I don’t want to encourage it."
On the other hand, he said, he's got a different philosophy than his predecessor.
"I’m not going to have the cyber warriors of the world track down the grid square of where they tweeted that," he said. "I want to keep it fun, but cynical and serious at the same time."
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.
