LONDON — “Want to see more of Lasse L. Matberg?” NATO asked on Facebook last October about an officer who acted as the public face for a recent military exercise. The following week, it said, he was to take part in Trident Juncture 2018, NATO’s “biggest exercise in decades.”

Mr. Matberg’s image, sometimes seen with Norway’s Armed Forces, has appeared prominently on his Instagram account, which has 630,000 followers. He and other NATO soldiers have also been active on Facebook, with 5,000 photos published under the hashtag #Tridentjuncture, showing soldiers posing with guns, in the field or in the cockpit of a military aircraft.

Publicizing exercises like Trident Juncture has become an essential tool for NATO to get its message out and to showcase its military strength — especially in the face of fake news spread online by Russia. But such information published on social media platforms carries risks, researchers from the Strategic Communications Center of Excellence warned this week.

An article published by the independent organization, which provides NATO with advice and expertise and is based in Riga, Latvia, said that during another recent exercise (not Trident Juncture) in a NATO nation, researchers were able to collect sensitive information, track troop movements and find soldiers’ approximate location via social media.