- 2 days ago
Business Insider was invited to observe a handful of influencers at Fort Knox while they made content during ROTC Cadet Summer Training.
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00:00this is an army tug and it's used to pull army aircraft and when we're not using this
00:05here's what we use this is social media influencer tyler butterworth he's currently filming a video
00:19with an american gladiator and army strongman behind the walls of fort knox
00:24oh that was great guys known online as butterworth to syrup he has over six million followers across
00:33social media platforms which is 4.5 times more than the number of people actively serving in the
00:40military today he is also one of a handful of soldiers working with the army to make social
00:47content aimed at boosting recruitment i'm here at the association of the united states army supporting
00:53the army let's see who's here excuse me sir oh my gosh what a beautiful baby who are you and what
00:59do you do here i got into instagram and the short form video as a result of recruiting essentially
01:05i would sit at my desk and call a school list to reach people that i'm looking for and very quickly
01:10i realized that's not how these high school kids or students were you know receiving information
01:16oh my gosh i'm here at cadet summer training and you're not going to believe who i just saw no way
01:26are you chris pratt no my fault butterworth's social media skills resulted in new opportunities
01:34for him within the army the army has been supportive of my like kind of social media journey from the
01:40from the get-go from recruiter then i went to be the social media ncoic for the army national guard all
01:4554 states and territories and now i'm moving into the talent innovation area within the army how are we
01:54done gen z's opinion of the military has grown less favorable in recent years a department of defense
02:03survey showed favorable views fell from 46 percent in 2016 to 35 percent in 2021 a drop of 11 percentage
02:13points in five years they're not going to come to us unless we start handing out bags of cash so we
02:20need to go where they're at and the best way to meet them where they're at is to find people they're
02:24already familiar with or may have seen before just an individual talking about their individual
02:30experiences goes a lot further than organization talking about what they can provide you all ready
02:36set go for decades army aviation has transported blood worldwide for troops and support you can
02:43spend millions of dollars in a marketing campaign and you really can't show the roi but with instagram
02:50tick tock youtube i just need limited equipment and as long as it's a good video a million people can
02:56watch that and it didn't cost me a dime major john howell known online as servant of leaders is another
03:03service member creating military content hey fellas how's it going good sir cigarettes huh
03:13cool well see you later at fort knox rotc cadet command invited several influencers during cadet summer
03:24training to create content for their pages i can tell you from first glance look at the collaboration
03:30posts that we do with these individuals the numbers are high they typically almost double
03:36one of our well-performing videos when we collaborate with these influencers
03:41uh what's your favorite mre item chili mac oh i don't uh chili mac the entree we should blast the
03:47pizza mre into the sun oh man controversial we're answering uh story questions from yesterday for just
03:55like uh instagram yeah we've got like i don't know a thousand or so of them so we're just picking a
04:00couple in recent years the military has increasingly relied on influencers to help address recruiting
04:07shortfalls over the last five years the army has struggled more than other branches failing to meet
04:14its recruiting goal by more than 25 000. i'm a major and my job is to make his life hell when i was in
04:22company command and recruiting for that unit when i would meet soldiers uh one-on-one for coffee and
04:27if i walked in there and they said oh you're that guy from tick tock or from instagram i knew i had my
04:32foot in the door okay so i actually get this one a lot and it's really not that hard so if you come
04:37with me right now i'm going to show you how to do this very simple okay all right so the first thing
04:44you want to know is you always want to film your car this is for two reasons first reason it's a great
04:50place to hide out from work okay in january 2025 the army launched its creative reserve pilot program
04:59to coach soldiers on making effective social media content sometimes the questions are super political
05:10and uh yeah we just don't you just don't yeah gotta be apolitical all right that's how we roll
05:16the pilot began with eight volunteers including tyler butterworth austin von letkeman and johnny vargas
05:24guys we're here in dc and this is the most annoying lunch in the city the army paused the program for
05:31an ethics review in november 2025. after the vietnam war draft ended in 1973 the army spent less than 10 million
05:42dollars a year on recruiting and advertising a decade later spending had increased tenfold to roughly
05:50100 million dollars as the be all you can be campaign took off we do more before 9 a.m than most people do
05:59in 2023 the army spent about 117 million dollars to relaunch be all you can be if you see obstacles
06:18ahead of you take a closer look at this force that's been overcoming them for almost 250 years
06:24here with new commercials starring actor jonathan majors after allegations of domestic violence
06:31against majors surfaced the army pulled the ads and quickly re-edited the spots to remove him
06:38this year the army is increasing its marketing and advertising budget to 1.1 billion a 10 percent
06:45increase from the year before thank you sir some argue that traditional ad campaigns may not resonate with
06:53a tech savvy generation cable tv is just not where it used to be we've got this new generation of
07:00kids who have had technology at their fingertips since they're growing up which in most cases is very
07:07much a good thing but they have access to all this different information and all these different
07:12channels of information uh yes i have had a cabinet before but did you know if you join the united states
07:17army you can get a dental care plan that will take care of your cabinets it's very true very true the
07:23more you know thank you i think to put all of our stock into an old medium that these this generation
07:31isn't paying attention to it's just not fruitful that's why the public affairs team at fort knox has
07:38started inviting influencers onto the installation this is a prop and it's danger you know what's also
07:47danger running out of blood howell and butterworth are collaborating on a video to promote a blood
07:52drive do you want to say that portion and then i will say something like because you you start with
08:00if you're interested in donating blood or hosting a donor program at your installation contact blah blah
08:06blah and then it can go to me and i'll say you know what i'm interested in a ginger ale and a stroopwafel
08:11and then and then you guys from up there can just be like yeah we don't have that humor is king as
08:19sarn sarn butterworth told me back in the day uh humor is king overall as you can tell this aircraft
08:24is incredibly roomy i'll be your stewardess and don't ask me for anything if you'd like in-flight
08:30entertainment just let me know and i'll sing a song also if you would like in-flight beverages or
08:36complimentary snacks we don't have those that was a good man yeah yeah oh yeah that was good
08:43well i started making content about two and a half years ago uh and i have to say my first content was
08:48not cool at all a lot of workout videos stuff that people wouldn't watch and when i met sarn
08:53butterworth the thing he told me was you need to use humor and uh it really took off after that started
08:59making humorous videos with guys in my office and it really picked up after that and seemed to work
09:04better with the recruiting effort after we started using humor this is an army airplane we use it for
09:09a variety of things cargo personnel today we're going to be talking about transporting blood this is a
09:16prop and it's danger you know what's also danger running out of blood as you can tell this aircraft
09:22is incredibly roomy i'll be your stewardess and don't ask me for anything i think it's important to
09:27show that while we are lethal and we can maneuver and do all these things in the army we're also regular
09:32people we like to laugh we like to joke around eat good food or bad food sometimes but that's really
09:38what it is i want to show soldiers in a positive light and not necessarily super serious all the
09:45time because we're not we're not super serious all the time the army has also invested in influencer
09:51driven partnerships including an 11 million dollar deal with dwayne the rock johnson and his united
09:58football league subsequent reporting found the campaign didn't yield any recruits internal documents
10:06say the ufl effort was so ineffective the army actually lost a projected 38 enlistments
10:14in the summer of 2025 the army tried a different approach to promote its 250th anniversary parade
10:21we're here for the army's 250th birthday it invited members of the creative reserve program
10:29to create content about the event and saw considerable success we're here at the army's 250th birthday and
10:36today we're doing picture for a question let's do it favorite thing about the army definitely the
10:41networking and experiences across the world for us aren't favorite thing about the army
10:46the posts reached about 40 million people army accounts gained 72 000 followers three times the
10:57average users gained for a social media campaign and the website for the event logged 265 000 visits
11:06fort knox has also begun inviting non-military influencers on base to broaden rotc cadet training's reach
11:15we invited out mike ohearn you may know him as four-time mr olympia four-time powerlifting champion
11:22or if you're of my generation of the millennial era you might recognize him from american gladiator as
11:29titan if you easily frighten beware of titan it's really exciting for us because this is the first time
11:36we've had a non-military affiliated uh content creator come out and uh do stuff with us most of uh his
11:43audience may are going to be of the younger generation of and who are into physical fitness
11:48which is perfect because we want that group of people to see what kind of opportunities are out
11:56with rotc everywhere our cameras followed the influencers soldiers of all ages stopped them to
12:04take photos i i don't think there is a single uh place we were able to go here where he didn't
12:10take a photo with someone or stop and talk with somebody so it's a relationship i want to continue
12:15to foster yeah man the six u.s military branches have different guidelines for social media usage
12:24many of which are fairly vague we adhere to the army social media policy so these are personal pages
12:30you know i try to uh when i'm not working with a pao i try not to post in uniform try to adhere to that
12:35policy playing pool huh yeah you know back when i was at west point i had to take geometry i don't
12:43know if you know what that is another policy directly targets one of the most popular apps tick tock is
12:49definitely not an approved method of using it in january 2020 the army banned tick tock on government
12:55devices as a dod identified security risk yet many military influencers still post from personal devices
13:03as long as you're not using it on a government device then you can use it in a direct recruiting
13:08purpose you're not supposed to use it for that so that's why my stuff is never really a call
13:12to action like join the army or anything like that it's more so just getting information out
13:15there i started posting on that platform and to be honest a lot of the young kids i meet
13:20say they watch this stuff on tick tock so if we want to reach that generation i think we have
13:24to be on that platform personally what kind of oversight do you have with the content that they're
13:28putting out so uh that is kind of the beautiful thing about uh being public affairs is i have a
13:34lot of oversight over what is releasable and what is not as far as oversight goes there is oversight
13:41but it's not something i am actively trying to beat in over these guys when they're visiting here
13:48because we all want the same thing we want a better army we want the best army we want the best people
13:54come into the army another gray area is monetization influencers like howell and butterworth who work
14:02directly with the army aren't paid for posts though creators may earn platform revenue from their
14:09personal accounts a lot of people think that you're doing it for the wrong reasons you know for money
14:14or pushing merch or uh just for fame and i wanted that to be very clear with my social media presence
14:20it was not for that um any money i've made i've donated to non-profits you're not taking any money
14:26from it at all no uh i think we're about to hit uh donating close to i know it's not a lot of money
14:31about eight thousand dollars um a lot of that has gone to uh the blue skies foundation it's an army
14:37aviation uh non-profit that gives money away to following uh crew members um families so uh i've given
14:45a lot of that to that foundation did you think before you joined that everyone in the national
14:50guard was fat lazy and just drank beer during drill weekends is that why you joined i really don't
14:59like the attention to be honest i it's more about helping others and recruiting for the army and
15:03sharing how this has changed my life i wanted to change yours as well major how can you tell us
15:08about army food army food is great shout out to the 92 goths uh just doing the lord's work i really like
15:14um the noodles yakisobi best in the field just really raises morale they really have that yeah
15:22out in washington oh okay i don't really view this as a job i'm not here for myself i'm here for the
15:28soldiers that's 100 the best part of being here is meeting everyone seeing what they're doing and
15:33help helping tell their story and now let's move this bad boy okay let's go all right one two three come on guys
15:46yeah baby
15:51here we go
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