20 Lessons From Creating An Online Outreach Empire

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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 communication

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20 Lessons From

Creating An

Online Outreach Empire

Craig R. McClain @DrCraigMc

Deep Sea News

Deep SeaNews

DSN

Chief Editor DSN#deepsndeepseanews.com @deepseanews

scienceofthesouth.com

storyofsize.com

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

1. Stop Thinking Social Media Isn’t Important

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?

3 out of 4 Americans use social technology -Forrester, The Growth of Social Technology Adoption, 2008

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

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

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/

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

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/

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

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.

3. Social Media Will Benefit Your Scientific Career

*Perhaps Not Directly or In Ways You Will Imagine

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.

Crowd Sourcing Science

Conferences

Blogs written by scientists for scientists are becoming common and important places for the exchange of ideas

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

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

01/01/2007

01/01/2008

01/01/2009

01/01/2010

01/01/2011

01/01/2012

01/01/2013

01/01/2014

01/01/2015

Cum

mul

ativ

e Pa

ge V

iew

s

0

1,000,000

2,000,000

3,000,000

4,000,000

5,000,000

6,000,000

7,000,000

8,000,000

9,000,000

10,000,000

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?

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

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.”

7. Stop Taking Refuge In Our Irrelevance 

588,737 Current Population of Miami: 413,892

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 

9. Embrace the World Around You

10. Network + Good Story = Viral

11. BE CREATIVE

12. Get Yourself A Super Team

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

storyofsize.com #sizingoceangiants

14. Manage Your Streams

RSS

15. Become A Nerd of Trust

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

•easy…

•you probably already do it

•can ask questions of colleagues

•can push science to it

Should I Blog?

16. Unless the first thing and last thing you think about every day is writing, then don’t blog

starting a blog is easy...

...keeping it updated is not

17. You Have 10 Seconds And 10 Words

18. On the Internet Someone Is Always Mad And Looking For A Fight

19. You are not winning anybody over by being an @$$

20. People Want Quality and Awe

@DrCraigMc

Deep Sea News

Deep SeaNewsDS

N

http://deepseanews.com

http://craigmcclain.com

most images courtesy of ShutterStock

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