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

1. 20 Lessons
From
Creating An
Online
Outreach
Empire
Craig R. McClain @DrCraigMc

2. Deep Sea News
deepseanews.com @deepseanews #deepsn
Chief Editor DSN
Deep Sea
News
DSN
scienceofthesouth.com
storyofsize.com

3. Free: Lesson Have A Slide Like This
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.$
Craig R. McClain @DrCraigMc

4. 1. Stop Thinking Social Media Isn’t Important

5. 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?

6. 3 out of 4 Americans use social technology
-Forrester, The Growth of Social Technology Adoption, 2008

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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/

10. 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

11. 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/

13. 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

14. 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.

15. 3. Social Media Will Benefit Your Scientific
Career
*Perhaps Not Directly or In Ways You Will Imagine

16. 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.
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

19. Crowd Sourcing Science

20. Conferences

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

24. 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

25. Deep Sea News
10,000,000
9,000,000
8,000,000
7,000,000
6,000,000
5,000,000
4,000,000
3,000,000
2,000,000
1,000,000
0
01/01/2006
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
Date
Cummulative Page Views
This 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

26. 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?

27. 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

28. 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.”

29. 7. Stop Taking Refuge In Our Irrelevance
588,737
Current Population of Miami: 413,892

30. 8. Write and Communicate About Want
You Want To Write and Communicate
About
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.

31. 9. Embrace the World Around You

33. 10. Network + Good Story = Viral

34. 11. BE CREATIVE

35. 12. Get Yourself A Super Team

36. 13. Stop Treating Outreach & Research as
Separate Entities.
We Need a New Formula
Outreach Research ORuetrseeaacrhch
What if we started to create differently?
New graduate training, courses, lab cultures, and departments

37. storyofsize.com
#sizingoceangiants

39. 14. Manage Your Streams

40. RSS

41. 15. Become A Nerd of Trust

43. Density
20
15
10
5
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
0 50 100 150
Number of Science Related Posts in Last 30 Days
Number of Scientists N= 58
9
6
3
0
0 500 1000 1500
Total Facebook Friends
Number of Scientists

44. •easy…
•you probably already do it
•can ask questions of
colleagues
•can push science to it

46. Should I Blog?

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

48. starting a blog is easy...
...keeping it updated is not

49. 17. You Have 10 Seconds And 10 Words

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

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

52. 20. People Want Quality and Awe

55. Deep Sea News
http://deepseanews.com
@DrCraigMc
Deep Sea
News
DSN
http://craigmcclain.com
most images courtesy of ShutterStock