How to Be A Social Media God: A Guide for Scientists

How
to
be a

Social Media God

Craig R. McClain @DrCraigMc

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.$

Deep Sea News

D

Deep Sea
News

SN

deepseanews.com
@deepseanews
#deepsn

1/3 of women aged 18-34 check
Facebook when they first wake up
!

...even before going to the bathroom

http://www.dailyillini.com/features/health_and_living/article_323b7fd8-966a-11e2-b435-001a4bcf6878.html

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-facebookover-230449748.html

All media is now
social media

om
wer away fr
e po
he
s shifting th
blishment, t
nology i
esta
Tech
lishers, the
pub
editors, the
l.
media elite.
re in contro
ho a
he people w
Now it's t
ert Murdoch
-Rup

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. I also want to make sure you are still awake.

What is your online mission?
Personal? Outreach? Science?
Consume, Share, Filter, Generate?

Assignment 1:
Generate A List of
What You Plan to Accomplish
with Social Media
!
!

Tweet It

12 General
Rules
of Online
Engagement

If I Google You
If IWhat Would I Find?
Google You, What

Would I Find?

t to be or not. .
n
ether you wa
one else is
online wh
1.You’re on
identity some
curating your
t
t.
2.If you’re no
your conten
re you create
3.Make su

1. Make It Easy to Find the YOU You Want to be Found

A Personal Website.
Your Home on the Web

Easy and free ways to get personal
webpage
Wordpress, Blogspot, Google,
Snap Pages, Joomla, Weekly, Wix

craigmcclain.com

2. The Internet is Big and Scary
...Find a Village

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

7a. Remember internet is full of people who like to argue
7b. Not everyone is your friend.
7c. Know when and when not engage.
7d. Take it lightly.

8. Don’t Step On the Commons

Let Your Audience
Know When You
Are Passing
Information Along
and When You Are
Generating It

9. You Have 10 Seconds and/or 10 Words

Deep Sea News
!

D

SN

•At
www.deepseanews.com
the
average
length
spent
on
the
website
in
2013
was
54
seconds

•87.8%
of
visitors
only
read
a
single
post.

•Only
12%
of
page
views
were
by
returning
visitors.

•More
than
50%
of
readers
never
commented
and
near
25%
only
commented
one
or
twice

Deep Sea
•When
surveyed
readers
were
asked
why
they
did
not
comment,
“the
reader
did
not
feel
qualiﬁed

News

(28.6%),
the
reader
had
nothing
to
add
(25.7%),
or
the
reader
did
not
generally
comment
on
blogs

(17.1%).”

•This
suggests
that
social
media
engagement
through
blogs
may
be
short,
superﬁcial,
and
single
serving.

re
a
es

ds
ien
r

rf
ou
y

1

emMemes Are Your Friends
.M
0

12. There is no substitute for the real world

•easy…
•you probably already do it
•can ask questions of
colleagues

•can push science to it

•Eavesdropping:
follow
informaRve
people
to
get
informaRon
and

learn

•Dialogue:
exchange,
discuss,
and
debate
informaRon
(Asking

specific
quesRons?)

•Broadcast:
used
by
news
organizaRons
and
businesses
to
inform

audience
about
news
or
products/services,
outreach

•Data
collecRon:
e.g
fishermen
using
TwiYer
to
monitor
fish

populaRons.

•Impromptu
journalism:
e.g.
landing
on
Hudson
river,
Mumbai

aYacks,
Iran
post-‐elecRon
protests

•MindcasRng:

following
a
single
story
or
topic,
with
links,
for
a

period
of
Rme,
e.g.
like
my
ongoing
coverage
of
the
#oilspill

“To
do
science,
you
have
to
know
what’s
going
on
in
science.
I
found
Twi9er…most
useful
for
becoming

informed
of
what
other
people
are
doing
in
science.
By
sharing
comments,
links,
informaAon,
and
notes

about
new
scienAfic
developments
with
trusted
sources
I
am
be9er
able
to
keep
up
with
the
vast
amount

of
informaAon
in
my
fields
of
interest.
Social
networks
enable
real-‐Ame
highlighAng
and
ranking
and

tracking
of
what’s
going
on
in
the
world
of
science.”

-‐Jon
Eisen

Twitter is the equivalent of drinking out of firehose

Anatomy of a Tweet
@users
DM Direct Message
RT retweets
MT modified tweet
#hashtags
#FF Follow Fridays
!

@nytimesscience/general-science

ffic
ra
gt

din
uil

S

ps
te

rB
fo

Time
Engagement
Creation
Profile
Content

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

1. Be Strategic. Be Deliberate.

Mission Statement:
!

Demystifying and humanizing science in an open conversation that instills
passion, awe, and responsibility for the oceans.

Deep Sea News
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

2. 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

3. 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.”

5. Embrace the World Around You

6. Network + Good Story = Viral

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.

Deep Sea News

8. The deficit model is dead

Stop shouting the
same information
more and more
loudly

9. Stop Treating Outreach & Research as
Separate Entities.
!

We Need a New Formula

Outreach

Research

Outreach
Research

What if we started to create differently?
New graduate training, courses, lab cultures, and departments

storyofsize.com
#sizingoceangiants

More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month
!

Over 4 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube
!

72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute

Video is a large time investment
to do well, but the payoff can be
huge

A George Washington University
and Cision survey in 2009 also
reported that 89% of journalists
use blogs and 65% use social
networks to research stories
(Cision, 2009).

!

A recent survey of journalists in
the UK, France, and Germany
showed that 60% use Wikipedia
for fact checking articles (Dugan,
2010).

Now Go Out
There And
Get Social!

Deep Sea News
http://deepseanews.com

Deep Sea
News

D
SN

@DrCraigMc

http://craigmcclain.com
most images courtesy of ShutterStock

How to Be A Social Media God: A Guide for Scientists

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