Anything But Trivial Or Tweeting Your Way to Relevance and Visibility While Having Fun

1. Anything But Trivial Or Tweeting Your Way to Relevance and Visibility While Having Fun Leveraging Social Media to Promote Your Organization: A Case Study Michael E. Newman, National Institute of Standards and Technology Mark Newell, U.S. Geological Survey

2. Background: What is Science.gov? • “One Stop” web-search portal • Combines databases and websites from more than 15 Federal agencies • 200+ million pages of authoritative Gov’t science and research info • Free of charge • Celebrating 10+ years of service • Social Media presence on Web and Twitter

3. Challenges for Promotion • Needed to generate more awareness of portal and its vast knowledge base • Ad-hoc Promotions Group with volunteer members from supporting agencies • No budget for promotion • Competing with crowded Social Media environment Fortunately, the Promotions Group has members with Social Media/communications experience!

4. Goals and Objectives • Develop awareness and exposure • Gain interest • Increase visibility • Encourage use of Science.gov website • Boost other agency participation • Amplify participating agency’s website and communications goals • Make science and research relevant and FUN!

5. The Grand Experiment • “Science.gov Trivia Challenge” • Tweets: Each post features interesting science-based trivia question from one member agency • Click on URL in tweet Science.gov landing page • Landing page: Full question and answer, plus summary with several links • Cumulative archive of all postings • Liberal use of #hashtags to increase traffic

6. Trivia Status (as of 2/22/2014)Showing Current and Future Federal Agency Participation

7. Tweeting Cycles (as of 2/22/2014)

8. Steps to Launch of Trivia Challenge • Got Promotions Group “buy-in” of plan • Developed “how to” guide for creating trivia tweets • Determined resources vs opportunity • Built the trivia collection • Edited and verified trivia tweets • 3….2…1…Lift Off!!! June 4, 2013 • Post every Tuesday and Thursday – 11:00 ET

9. Dissecting the Trivia PostThe Tweeted Question As posted on @Sciencegov #trivia World’s deadliest recorded #earthquake occurred when/where? Go.usa.gov/bu2u5 #earthquakes #USGS • Tweet starts with #trivia to identify it as a trivia question and draw in those seeking trivia on Twitter • Shortened URL takes viewers to landing page on Science.gov website • Hashtags draw in those interested in tagged subjects and featured agency

10. Dissecting the Trivia PostThe Answer As posted on www.science.gov/trivia Question: Where and when did the deadliest recorded earthquake occur? Answer: China, 1556 The world's deadliest recorded earthquakeoccurred in 1556 in the Shaanxi Province, central China. It struck a region where most people lived in caves carved from soft rock. These dwellings collapsed during the earthquake, killing an estimated 830,000 people. In 1976, another deadly earthquake struck in Tangshan, China, where more than 250,000 people were killed. Worldwide earthquake activity is monitored by the United States Geological Survey (USGS).For more information, go to: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ • Full question and answer revealed on landing page; previous posts archived • Links in summary send viewers to additional information

11. A Sample Trivia Challenge Post#trivia @usnistgovcalibrated timers for what 2002 Winter #Olympics competition? http://Go.usa.gov/b2u5 #scigov

12. Initial Results and Takeaways • Virtual growth curve: 8 month “hockey stick” • More than doubled Twitter followers: 15-25 new followers per week • 40,000+ “clicks” Twitter Science.gov website • Reflected by website “hits” • Posting retweets average: 20 • Increased traffic to participating agency websites

13. Retweets Key to Broad Outreach Current FederalCurrent MediaTargets for Future NASA 6M New Scientist 2M National Geographic 5.6M Library of Congress 564K Science News 744K Discovery Channel 2.1M NSF 442K Scientific American 728K Wired Science 1.2M USGS 357K NPR Science Friday 442KBill Nye the Science Guy 1.2M NOAA 236K Popular Science 254K Ars Technica 638K Commerce 86K EurekAlert! (AAAS) 16K NY Times Science Desk 541K NARA 36K NLM 23K NIST 16K Also plan to target: • Educational organizations and associations “Start science classes out with icebreaker trivia” • Scientific organizations and associations “Promote trivia for online messages and newsletters”

14. Project Maintenance and Future • More trivia from agencies, edit and queue • Posts amplified by agency websites, blogs, Facebook, Google+, Twitter and other Social Media platforms • Total start-up cost: $2,000 (estimated labor) • Maintenance costs: $80 per week • Results PRICELESS!

15. Summary – What’s In It for You? • Increases organizational awareness, visibility and interest • Leverages low-cost/no-cost social media • Boosts interorganizational cooperation and collaboration • Improves internal morale and agency pride • Uses available resources to maximize exposure • HAVE FUN!

16. More Samples from the Science.gov Trivia Challenge

17. #trivia: @nlm_news NLM main bldg built 1950s to protect frmwhat disaster? http://go.usa.gov/b2u5 #scigov

18. #trivia: @nlm_news NLM main bldg built 1950s to protect frmwhat disaster? http://go.usa.gov/b2u5 #scigov

19. #trivia: Who was only @NASA astronaut to fly on all five Space Shuttles: Young, Ride or Musgrave? Go.usa.gov/b2u5 #scigov

20. #trivia: Who was only @NASA astronaut to fly on all five Space Shuttles: Young, Ride or Musgrave? Go.usa.gov/b2u5 #scigov

21. #trivia: Which @Energy laboratory was the birthplace of #video #games? Go.usa.gov/b2u5 #scigov

22. #trivia: Which @Energy laboratory was the birthplace of #video #games? Go.usa.gov/b2u5 #scigov

23. Questions? Michael E. Newman, NIST michael.newman@nist.gov Mark Newell, USGS mnewell@usgs.gov