Presented to the Gemini Observatory in Hilo, HI on Sept 26th, 2013.

1. Science and Social Media:
The Importance of Being Online
Christie Wilcox
University of Hawaii at Manoa

2. The Connected World
of Americans use the internet
78%
more than

3. The Connected World
In 2000…
360,985,492 users
In 2012…
2,405,510,175 users
…an increase of more than 660%!

4. 1996 20061996 2006
250,000 sites 80,000,000 sites250,000 sites 80,000,000 sites
45 million users 1 billion+ users45 million users 1 billion+ users
User
Generated
Content
Collective IntelligenceCollective Intelligence

5. Internet = Information
Where do you get most of your news about national and international issues?
PEW Research Center, Dec 2010

6. Internet = Information
Where do you get most of your news about national and international issues?
(< 30 yrs old)
PEW Research Center, Dec 2010

7. Internet = Information
University of Chicago, National Opinion
Research Center, General Social Survey (2008)
Where do you get information on specific scientific issues?
The Internet is the main
source of information for
learning about specific
scientific issues such as
global climate change or
biotechnology

8. Internet = Communication
Do you use social media?
PEW Research Center, Feb 2012

9. 57% of Americans say they
talk to people more online
than they do in real life
57% of Americans say they
talk to people more online
than they do in real life

10. In 2011, social media overtook looking at porn as the
number one online activity.

11. 17% of all time
spent online is
spent on social
networking sites

12. Social Media = Internet on Steroids
15,35
8
tweets per second
when Italy lost to Spain
in the 2012 European
Championship
684,47
8
pieces of
content shared
every minute
on Facebook
of video is uploaded
to YouTube every
second
1
hour

14. All The Kids Are Doing It
Close to 90% of 18-30 year olds have at least one social
media account…
… and almost a
third will check
their networks
before they even
get out of bed.

15. All The Kids Are Doing It
"Younger generations aren’t going to look for your
company or society in print—they’re going to go
directly to your Web site and then maybe your
Facebook page, and, if interested, they will follow
you on Twitter.
If you’re not there, neither will they be—
and you’ve lost them at a critical point of
contact."
- Kea Giles
Managing Editor at the Geological Society of America

16. 0
20
40
60
80
OnaSocialNetwork?
Average American Scientists

18. Stereotypical Scientist

19. Draw A Scientist
Actual drawings made by 7th
grade students when asked to draw a scientist


20. “Can you name a living scientist?”
In 2009, Research!America polled the average American to name any of
the 7.1 million or so living scientists worldwide...

21. “Can you name a living scientist?”
…65% didn’t even try.

22. “Can you name a living scientist?”
… another 18% got it wrong…
Albert
Einstein?
Albert
Einstein?
Marie
Curie?
Marie
Curie?

23. “Can you name a living scientist?”
… only 17% were able to correctly name one.
Albert
Einstein?
Albert
Einstein?
Stephen
Hawking!
Stephen
Hawking!

24. Barriers to Communication

25. - Rick E. Borchelt, Lynne T . Friedmann, & Earle Holland
Managing the Trust Portfolio: Science Public Relations and Social Responsibility
"The scientific community needs to
understand what ethical
practitioners of public relations
have long known: trust is not about
information; it’s about dialogue and
transparency"

26. 1. Know your audience
2. Identify precise, key main messages
1. One size does not fit all
2. Learn from your experience
Successful Science Communication

27. 1. Know Your Audience

28. NOT “Dumbing Down”
This is not your audience…. … THIS is your audience

29. 2. Identify Precise, Key Messages
Imagine you have
exactly five minutes
in an elevator
with an influential
potential funder…
What
would
you
want
to
say?

30. 2. Identify Precise, Key Messages
You need to focus on what matters
so your target audience
isn’t overwhelmed.

31. 3. One Size Does Not Fit All

32. 3. One Size Does Not Fit All
≠ ≠
≠
What works for others may not be right for you!

33. 4. Learn From Your Experience
You have to know what you’re hoping to accomplish…
… and, most importantly, how you measure success

34. 4. Learn From Your Experience
MessageMessage
Methods
& Strategy
Methods
& Strategy
MeasureMeasure
Success!Success!

35. FredCavazza.net
The Social Media Landscape

36. FredCavazza.net
Diversity of Access Points

37. Beyond Computers
Just shy of 50% of Americans own a smartphone, and two
thirds of them will use it to access the internet
on a daily basis.

38. FredCavazza.net
Niche Uses

39. FredCavazza.net
Niche Uses
While these are useful in certain contexts,
I won’t be talking about them

40. FredCavazza.net
The Big Ones

41. Digital Water Coolers
• Chat
• Discuss
• Share
• Gossip
• Debate
• Connect
• Keep In
Touch

42. FredCavazza.net
Blogs, Wikis, Websites

43. Content Producers & Curators

44. FredCavazza.net
Multimedia Creation & Curation

45. Creative Content
Multimedia that can supplement
other content…
… or stand alone
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Music
• Images
• Artwork

46. FredCavazza.net
Networking

47. Digital Business Cards & Resumes

48. FredCavazza.net
It’s All About Synergy!

49. Online Communities

50. of internet
users are.
of < 30 y.o. use it
as their primary
news source
million links
are shared
every hour
Don't think you need to be on Facebook?

51. The Largest Social Network

52. Bigger IS Better
more people means more possibility to
your efforts!

53. • For an individual
• Viewed by friends, subscribers
• Many privacy options
• No statistics
• Is you
• Single administrator
• For organizations, things,
celebrities
• Viewed by fans/anyone
• Public
• Provides some analytics
• Can be separated from individuals
• Can have many administrators
Which? Depends on what you want to use Facebook for!

54. Professional Networking
Keeping in Touch
Sharing Personal Opinions
Smaller Network
Privacy
Finding/Creating an Audience
Separating Work from Home
Large Fan/Interest Base
Lots of Contributors
Exposure

55. The Privacy Issue
“Participants who accessed the Facebook
website of a teacher high in self-disclosure
reported higher levels of teacher credibility
than participants who viewed a low self-
disclosure Facebook website”
The key?
be
not

56. Don’t Think You Need To Be On Google +?
“Facebook is about connecting to
people through who you know; and
Google Plus is about connecting to
people through what you know.”
— Kysimir, Soliloquy of Eloquence

57. Google+: Superior Sorting and Filtering

58. Google+: Easier to Find Interesting People

59. Google+: Video Integration

60. Facebook Success Stories: Collective Intelligence
“In less than 24 hours, this
approach identified
approximately 90 percent of the
posted specimens to at least the
level of genus, revealed the
presence of at least two likely
undescribed species, indicated
two new records for Guyana and
generated several loan requests.”
— Smithsonian blog post
“We didn’t have really the
time or resources to [identify
the specimens] the way that
we would traditionally do it”
— Brian Sidlauskas, lead scientist

61. Facebook Success Stories: Big Data

62. Google + Success Stories: Virtual Astronomy
“We pull together live
feeds from multiple
telescopes around the
world and broadcast
them into a live
Google+ hangout…
The response has
been overwhelming,
as we’ve made it
possible for people
without telescopes or
who have cloudy skies
a chance to see the
night sky from the
comfort of their home.”
— Fraser Cain,
publisher of Universe
Today

63. Microblogs
A web service that allows users to broadcast short messages to other subscribers
of the service

64. #1 Microblogging Platform: Twitter
"The qualities that make
Twitter seem inane and
half-baked are what make
it so powerful."
Jonathan Zittrain
Harvard University Law professor and Faculty Co-
Director, Berkman Center for Internet and Society

65. 1
billion new
tweets every 3
days
million active
users per month
200 20%
of online Americans
use twitter, and the
numbers keep rising
Don't think you need to be on Twitter?

66. 5,106 Tweets Per Second
Speed and Virality: A Case Study

67. Speed and Virality: A Case Study

68. in 48 hours.in 48 hours.
Speed and Virality: A Case Study
> 80,000> 80,000
pageviewspageviews
……

69. Speed and Virality: A Case Study

70. Why Statisticians Love Twitter
“The rate at which
people produce tweets
about movies can
accurately forecast the
box office revenue of the
film, but only after it is
released.
And the predictions from
tweets are more
accurate than any
other method of
forecasting.”
— MIT Technology Review

71. Why Statisticians Love Twitter
“Measuring how calm the Twitterverse is on a given day can
foretell the direction of changes to the Dow Jones Industrial
Average three days later with an accuracy of 86.7 percent.”
— Lisa Grossman, Wired Magazine

72. Twitter Predicts Citations
(in bottom and top quartile of tweets within 1 week)
Highly tweeted
papers were
11x
more likely to be
highly cited!

73. Twitter 101
A brief introduction to the Twitterverse

74. Filtering The Deluge
You have to accept the fact that you
cannot, and will not, see everything.

75. The Lingo
Username or Handle: this is your identifier, your Twitter “Name”. It is how users will
identify you.
Following and Followers: your twitter stream consists of tweets from the people you
choose to follow, much like an aggregation of subscriptions. Others who follow you,
called your followers, have your tweets appear in their twitter stream.
Username
A running tally
of a user’s
followers and
who they follow
The follow
button:
click to
follow this
user

76. The Lingo
Tweet: tweets are your method of communication via twitter, and are limited to 140
characters. Twitter automatically shrinks links of any size to 20 characters to help
them fit.
Click on this symbol in the menu bar to compose a new tweet.
A window will open that looks like this:

77. The Lingo
Direct Message: a direct message or “DM” is a tweet that is only viewable by the user
it is sent to, like the twitter version of a text or email. You can only send DMs to people
who follow you.
Favorites: Favorites allow you to like a tweet or save it for later without passing it along
to your followers.
Lists: Twitter allows you to create public and private lists which can be used to filter
different groups of twitter users. You can look at the stream of tweets from a list rather
than your whole feed.
The lock symbol indicates a list is “private”,
or only visible to youClicking here will show you
all of the tweets you have
favorited

78. The Lingo
Interactions: all of the ways other tweeters interact with you. Interactions include
new follows, if you’re added to a public list, mentions, retweets and favorites by
others of your tweets.
Mentions: placing @ symbol before a username links a tweet to their account. Such
mentions can be used to reply to a tweet, or simply draw another user’s attention.
Retweets: A special category of mentions, retweets are one of the fundamental
twitter interactions. By clicking the square arrow symbol, you pass along another’s
tweet in its entirety. You can also add commentary to another’s tweet by adding your
two cents then pasting their tweet after the letters “RT” (retweet) or “MT” (modified
tweet, if you had to alter their tweet to fit.)
Click to see your
interactions
How mentions appear
in tweets:

79. The Lingo
Hashtag: the # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark
keywords or topics in a tweet. You can search twitter by
hashtags, and thus follow the stream of tweets related to your
interest without following every person that might tweet about
it. For example, the conference hashtag #AAASmtg curates
tweets related to the American Academy of Sciences annual
meetings. When used correctly, hashtags are powerful ways
of filtering through the deluge of tweets.
Search for
hashtags
An example
hashtag
stream

80. “If you have, say, a thousand
followers on Twitter, that’s like
talking to a large auditorium
every time you tweet something
about your science: a powerful tool
indeed. A direct line like that
means the scientist can ensure
that their science is accurately
portrayed and that they have an
opportunity to share with the public
the personal passion that drives
them to science in the first place.”
Twitter Success Stories: The Power of Twitter

81. Twitter Success Stories: Live-Tweeting An Expedition
“We had arranged a text to donation
number, and I tweeted that every dive
in PNG cost us about $5USD and that
$5 donations to support the expedition
could be made by texting the number.
That single tweet raised a couple of
hundred dollars.”
Joshua Drew, lead scientist

82. Twitter Success Stories: Online Journal Club
“I have read papers that I would
never otherwise have come across
and I have had the chance to discuss
microbiology papers with other
microbiologists which results in
different discussions to the ones that
happen at the more general journal
club I attend at university.”
— Zoonotica, PhD Student

83. Microblogging Success Stories: Changing Stereotypes
“The project was definitely
a huge success….
The site had over 100,000
unique visitors in the first
month alone. The website
was initially shared on
Twitter in nearly 20
different languages, and
visitors have come from all
around the world.”
— Allie Wilkinson, co-founder

84. What is a Blog?
“Defining a science blog – heck, just defining a blog
– is difficult. After all, a blog is just a piece of
software that can be used in many different ways.”
— Bora Zivkovic, Blogs Editor Scientific American

85. A Brief History of Blogging
First
online
diary
Term
“weblog”
coined “Blog”
usage
spreads
First
platforms
emerge
Bloggers become influential
and trusted as news and
information sources
Blogging
becomes
‘mainstream’
1994 1997 1999 2003
Google
acquires
Blogger
2006
Science blog
networks
first emerge
Today
RSS
is
born

86. RSS: Digital Subscriptions
RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a
family of web feed formats used
to publish frequently updated
works—such as blog entries,
news headlines, audio, and
video—in a standardized format.

87. The Emergence of Science Blogs

88. Blogs: The New Frontier
“A new generation of young researchers has
grown up with an ever-present Internet.
Publishers have been quicker than academics to
react to this new world, but scientists must catch
up. Even if you choose not to blog, you can
certainly expect that your papers and ideas will
increasingly be blogged about. So there it is —
blog or be blogged.”
— Paul Knoepfler, Research Scientist & Blogger

89. Major Blogging Platforms

90. To determine whether fish were responding to chemical cues from the seaweed or the coral, we used 60-ml
syringes to pull in situ seawater from: among the filaments of C. fastigiata alone, the C. fastigiata–A. nasuta contact
area with C. fastigiata still present, the C. fastigiata–A. nasuta contact area after removing C. fastigiata 20 min
earlier (allowing loss of algal odor but retention of odor from the damaged coral), and the water column well away
from the benthos (as a control) and then slowly released these odors into corals containing G. histrio. Olfactory cues
from C. fastigiata alone generated no response by the goby. In contrast, odors from the coral-algal contact point or
from the stressed coral alone caused 17 and 19, respectively, of the goby pairs in 20 separate A. nasutacolonies to
move toward the odor source. Thus, the goby responds to chemical cues from the host coral, not to cues from the
seaweed (Fig. 2, Υ = 559.12, df = 2, P < 0.001; G test,).
Clarity, Without Jargon
...the scientists took water samples from next to undamaged corals, corals damaged by algae while the algae was
still present, corals damaged by algae after the algae was removed, and the algae alone away from coral. They
exposed gobies to these water samples and watched how they responded. In less than 15 minutes, gobies were
drawn to the water from damaged corals, but didn’t react to the chemical signature of algae by itself. “We found that
the gobies were being “called to” the area damaged by the algae, and that the “call” was coming from the damaged
coral, not from the seaweed.”

91. “I view it as a
fundamental part of my
job as a scientist and
an educator. I use
social networking to
follow the literature, to
do outreach, to
communicate with
colleagues, etc.”
- Jonathan Eisen
Blogging Success Stories: Enhancing The Network

92. Blogging Success Stories: Research & Peer Review
“Their most striking claim was that arsenic had been
incorporated into the backbone of DNA, and what we
can say is that there is no arsenic in the DNA at all”
— Rosie Redfield
,

93. What is a Wiki?
“Wikis create a sense of shared knowledge,
which may be carried across courses, curricula,
or countries.”
— Toby Coley, Wikis in Writing Education Research

94. Wikipedia
“Imagine a world in
which every single
person on the planet is
given free access to
the sum of all human
knowledge. That's what
we're doing.”
— Jimmy Wales, Founder of
Wikipedia

95. Free Wiki Platforms/Software

96. Innovative Uses: Open Notebooks

97. Innovative Uses: Evolving Resources
http://socialnetworkingforscientists.wikispaces.com

98. Be Creative

99. Why Do Visuals Matter?
• More than 1/3 — 36% — of tweets are images
• Articles with images get 94% more total views
• Including a photo and a video in a press release
increases views by over 45%
• Photo and video posts on Pinterest refer more traffic
than Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn and Google +

100. Images
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Photograph from the mid-1870s of a pile of American bison
skulls waiting to be ground for fertilizer
Five United States Marines and a United States Navy corpsman
raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi; by Joe Rosenthal

101. We ALREADY Visualize Science!
An animated gif of MRI images of a human headGraph of global temperatures over time

102. Visualizing Science: GIS

103. Visualizing Science
© Dave Beck & Jennifer Jacquet

104. Image Platforms

105. Video
On Facebook,
videos are shared
12x more than
links & text posts
combined

106. Video Platforms

107. Audio

108. Podcasts

109. Podcasts

110. Creative Outlets

111. The Best Part: Integration
Multimedia reaches out to a
diverse set of learning styles and
appeals to a broader audience
Most social media platforms, from
twitter to blogs, allow you to
enhance text posts with images,
video and more

112. “Facebook” For Scientists

113. ResearchGate

114. Academia.edu

115. 115
Data And Other Products

116. Reference Management

117. Crowdsourced Funding

118. Bringing It All Together
Most likely, a
combination
of platforms
and media
types will be
the best way
to achieve
your goals.

119. Return on Investment
Figure 1. Monthly audience by communication methodology shown on a linear scale.
Filled bars indicate traditional methodologies and unfilled bars indicate online methodologies.
Data sources are as follows: 1. estimate; 2. estimate; 3. Scientific American (http://bit.ly/Z0dkaF);
4. San Diego Union-Tribune (http://bit.ly/WusyhV); 5. New York Times (http://bit.ly/14aktDi); 6.
Twitter (http://tcrn.ch/146wWsy); 7. Wordpress (http://bit.ly/WVBwDa); 8. Facebook
(http://bit.ly/10xUemL). Numbers reflect the potential monthly audience for each medium, and not
necessarily the number of users who access a particular content item on that medium. All data
accessed on January 22, 2013 and normalized to monthly views.
Social
media is
the
definition of
“Broader Impacts”

120. Setting Up An Action Plan
Goals
What are you trying to achieve?
Actions
What platforms? How often?
Metrics
How will you know if things are working? How will you judge performance?
Personal Responsibility
Who does what? Be EXPLICIT.
Review and Revise
Track impacts, change actions etc as necessary.

121. Start by asking yourself: “Why?”
GoalsGoals
ActionsActions

122. Measuring Success
• Citations
• Pageviews
• Tweets, shares, likes
• Community
involvement
• Fundraising
• Attendance at events
• …

123. Measuring Success

125. Measuring Success
“Coming up with good metrics requires some
critical thinking. Don’t rely solely on the easy
analytics, like pageviews. Spend some time and
mental energy to figure out what you really
want… then spend some more time and mental
energy to come up with meaningful ways to
determine whether you’re getting it.”
— Matt Shipman, PIO and Science Writer

126. Tragedy of the Commons
Especially for groups or organizations…
be explicit about who is responsible for what

127. If At First You Don’t Succeed…
No one expects you to get everything right the first time.
• Use your metrics
• Experiment with new techniques and ideas
• See what works and what doesn’t
• Tweak the plan along the way

128. One more time…
Goals
What are you trying to achieve?
Actions
What platforms? How often?
Metrics
How will you know if things are working? How will you judge performance?
Personal Responsibility
Who does what? Be EXPLICIT.
Review and Revise
Track impacts, change actions etc as necessary.

129. The Internet is Yours!