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North-Central Section - 49th Annual Meeting (19-20 May 2015)

Paper No. 8
Presentation Time: 4:10 PM

SOCIAL MEDIA AT THE WISCONSIN GEOLOGICAL SURVEY: CONNECTING WITHOUT PAPER AND INK


MCCARTNEY, M. Carol, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, University of Wisconsin - Extension, 3817 Mineral Point Rd, Madison, WI 53705, carol.mccartney@wgnhs.uwex.edu

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube are all part of the outreach program at the Wisconsin Geological Survey. Each platform reaches different audiences. We use our website and social media to extend our reach beyond our publications. Why? How? With whom?

“Why” may seem obvious but is worth stating. In a time of dwindling resources, as well as waning support for and understanding of science, we are obliged to engage. We need to identify ourselves and demonstrate our value to rapidly evolving audiences and attention spans.

How? We have taken our message online in a variety of ways to connect with different groups interested in Wisconsin geology and the Survey. Our website is our primary online portal, with almost all of our publications now free on our mobile-ready site (WisconsinGeologicalSurvey.org). We keep the front page of our website active and current with a Facebook plugin.

Why Facebook? It is the largest social medium with 1.3 billion monthly users worldwide (Buzzplant, 2015). Over 1,300 follow our page at facebook.com/wgnhs. Facebook “Insights” tell us who we reach and market research predicts Facebook will grow in the 65+ demographic. Changes to Facebook in 2014 pushed us to focus more on Twitter and Pinterest to reach more and different users.

We have a Twitter feed (twitter.com/wgnhs) that has about 600 followers. Twitter claims to reach 288 million active monthly users (https://about.twitter.com/company) and is expected to continue to grow among 18- to 34-year-old users. Twitter helps us reach a different, younger audience than Facebook.

The surprise social medium has been Pinterest (pinterest.com/wgnhs). Worldwide, Pinterest had 110% growth in 2014 (Buzzplant, 2015) and much in a young demographic. We have 172 followers. Worldwide, Pinterest has 70 million users and 70% of them are women. We are targeting K-12 teachers with Pinterest.

We are currently experimenting with YouTube and Instagram to look for new ways to connect with the interested public.

Ref: Buzzplant, Jan 2, 2015, The who, what & where of social media 2014 [Infographic], http://bzp.lt/1zuimaX.

Session No. 15

Thinking outside the Display Case: Innovative Geological Outreach at Museums, Parks, and Surveys
Tuesday, 19 May 2015: 1:30 PM-5:30 PM
Hall of Ideas I (Monona Terrace Convention Center)
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 47, No. 5, p.26
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