20 lessons from creating an online outreach empire
DESCRIPTION
After 10 million hits, 10,000 Twitter followers, and 10,000 Facebook followers all for a niche blog about the oceans, I reflect on what works and doesn't in online science communicationTRANSCRIPT
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20 Lessons From
Creating An
Online Outreach Empire
Craig R. McClain @DrCraigMc
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Deep Sea News
Deep SeaNews
DSN
Chief Editor DSN#deepsndeepseanews.com @deepseanews
scienceofthesouth.com
storyofsize.com
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You$are$free$to:$
Copy,$share,$adapt,$or$re2mix;$
Photograph,$film,$or$broadcast;$
Blog,$live2blog,$or$post$video$of;$
Provided$that:$You$a?ribute$the$work$to$its$author$and$respect$the$rights$and$licenses$associated$with$its$components.$
Free: Lesson Have A Slide Like This
Craig R. McClain @DrCraigMc
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1. Stop Thinking Social Media Isn’t Important
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More than half of the human race is under the age of 30,
they've never known life without the internet.
Guess how they feel about social media?
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3 out of 4 Americans use social technology -Forrester, The Growth of Social Technology Adoption, 2008
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All media is now social media
Technology is shifting the power away from
editors, the publishers, the establishment, the
media elite.
Now it's the people who are in control.
-Rupert Murdoch
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If Facebook were a country it would be the third most populated in the world ahead of the United States
In Billions
China 1.35 India 1.21 Facebook 1.06 U.S. 0.31
http://news.yahoo.com/number-active-users-facebook-over-230449748.html
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5 billion pieces* of content a week on Facebook in 2010* web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/02/15/new-facebook-statistics-show-big-increase-in-content-sharing-local-business-pages/
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http://www.dailyillini.com/features/health_and_living/article_323b7fd8-966a-11e2-b435-001a4bcf6878.html
1/3 of women aged 18-34 check Facebook when they first wake up
...even before going to the bathroom
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As of April, 500 million total users and more than 200 million active users on Twitter
http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/resource-how-many-people-use-the-top-social-media/
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2. Remember Social Media Is Just A Tool
Social media is a tool like a microscope. It can be used well and badly.
It can be used to do a lot of different things.
-Jon Eisen
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Inreach
versus
Outreach
*
*James Brown has nothing to do with this. I simply have always wanted to put a photo of James Brown dancing in a presentation.
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3. Social Media Will Benefit Your Scientific Career
*Perhaps Not Directly or In Ways You Will Imagine
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Suggests that Twitter mentions do not reflect traditional research impact. Indeed, social media mentions may capture a previously unquantified impact of a scientist’s career (Priem et al. 2012).
Social Media Will Increase Exposure
One way that the social media appears does not to impact a scientific career is a direct link of social media mentions and citations on a scientific article.
In an analysis of 1.4 million documents in PubMed and Web of Science published from 2010 to 2012, Haustein et al. (2013) found no correlation between a paper or a journals citation count and Twitter mentions.
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Crowd Sourcing Science
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Conferences
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Blogs written by scientists for scientists are becoming common and important places for the exchange of ideas
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4. Be Strategic. Be Deliberate.
Mission Statement:
Demystifying and humanizing science in an open conversation that instills passion, awe, and responsibility for the oceans.
1.Direct from the bench and the trench. 2.Saying things others do not. 3.Reverently irreverent. 4.Promoting ocean literacy. 5.Perspective through a plurality of voices. 6.Awareness through scrutiny, not negativity. 7.Expanding the culture of ocean science. 8.Call to Action
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Deep Sea NewsThis blog is salt of the earth, or in this case, salt of the sea. It casts back to the best traditions of popular science, sparking curiosity and bewonderment, explaining the phenomena in comprehensible language. It’s all about communication between the expert and an interested reader, a transfer of knowledge and ideas, sharing the passion. -Blog Critics Magazine
Date01/01/2006
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Scientists put considerable thought and time into developing research programs and projects. This is to ensure success and time is not wasted. Why would you do any less with social media or outreach online?
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5. Branding...Branding...Branding...
Ángel Guerraa, Ángel F. Gonzáleza, Santiago Pascuala, and Earl G. Daweb (2011). The giant squid Architeuthis: An emblematic invertebrate that can represent concern for the conservation of marine biodiversity Biological Conservation, 144 (7), 1989-1998 :10.1016/j.biocon.2011.04.021
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6. Find Your Niche & Story
Reverently irreverent. We will be true to who we are in real life, leveraging humor to keep the science dialogue informal and accessible.
“This "oh-so-hip" presentation of a very interesting phenomenon is regrettable. I stopped reading halway [sic] through it as I couldn't take any more. Just present the science. Tarting it up for people to read is pointless. Such readers have no value. Too bad, I would have liked to learn the real scinece [sic] presented here.”
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7. Stop Taking Refuge In Our Irrelevance
588,737 Current Population of Miami: 413,892
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Producing something popular on the internet is as much about passion as it is about good content. With passion and the right writing style, you can make any type of science cool.
8. Write and Communicate About Want You Want To Write and Communicate About
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9. Embrace the World Around You
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10. Network + Good Story = Viral
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11. BE CREATIVE
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12. Get Yourself A Super Team
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13. Stop Treating Outreach & Research as Separate Entities.
We Need a New Formula
What if we started to create differently? New graduate training, courses, lab cultures, and departments
ResearchOutreach ResearchOutreach
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14. Manage Your Streams
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RSS
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15. Become A Nerd of Trust
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Den
sity
0 20 40 60 80
0.000
0.005
0.010
0.015
0.020
0.025
0.030
Percentage of Friends That Are Scientists
N= 56
0
5
10
15
20
0 50 100 150Number of Science Related Posts in Last 30 Days
Num
ber o
f Sci
entis
ts
N= 58
0
3
6
9
0 500 1000 1500Total Facebook Friends
Num
ber o
f Sci
entis
ts
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•easy…
•you probably already do it
•can ask questions of colleagues
•can push science to it
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Should I Blog?
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16. Unless the first thing and last thing you think about every day is writing, then don’t blog
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starting a blog is easy...
...keeping it updated is not
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17. You Have 10 Seconds And 10 Words
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18. On the Internet Someone Is Always Mad And Looking For A Fight
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19. You are not winning anybody over by being an @$$
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20. People Want Quality and Awe
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@DrCraigMc
Deep Sea News
Deep SeaNewsDS
N
http://deepseanews.com
http://craigmcclain.com
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