social media lessons from space for earth
DESCRIPTION
Did you know that the largest corporate Twitter account is managed by the US Space Administration? The account has over 7 million followers, making it bigger than those of all Fortune 500 companies, except for a few social media companies. In addition NASA is running many other very popular Twitter accounts and it is a major influencer on almost all other social media channels. At the same time its social media budget is only a small fraction of that of many commercial corporations. There must be some lessons to be learned for other organizations here! As a government institution NASA depends on political and public support for its activities. In the early days this was an easy sell. The whole world watched the US compete with Russia in the space race, which was finally won when Neil Armstrong put his foot on the surface of the Moon, with millions of people from all over the world watching in awe. But after this historic win attention faded and space exploration became a commodity in the public eye. For several decades the budgets for space exploration decreased and NASA struggled to keep public attention. Until it started to experiment with social media. NASA became a global leader in public outreach through new digital channels and public interest for space is on the rise again. This success story has many great lessons for social media marketers. Please follow me into space to learn about social media on Earth!TRANSCRIPT
@timmermansr | #SMWRdam
Social media lessons from space
for Earth
Remco Timmermans | @timmermansr | @WorldSpaceWeek
@timmermansr | #SMWRdam
UN-declared @WorldSpaceWeek is the largest public Space event in the world
#WSW2014
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Space is not a destination.
It is a destiny
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In the beginning,there was a race…
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photo credit: NASA
photo credit: RIA Novosti
Mercury – “The Right Stuff”Vostok – Yuri Gagarin
In the 1950’s and 1960’s astronauts were public heroes
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The Moon was the ultimate prize in the Space Race
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photo credit: NASA
Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins
The Apollo 11 crew became instant global super heroes
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Cernan, Stafford, Young
photo credit: NASA
But the Apollo 12 crew remained virtually unknown
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The number of #STEM students followed the decreasing @NASA budget
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Space Shuttle:135 missions that nobody knew cared about…
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photo credit: NASA History OfficeFlight #1: 12 April 1981
The first shuttle launched exactly 20 years after Yuri Gagarin
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photo credit: NASA
Flight #25 – Challenger, 1986
In the 1980’s and 90’s people mostly heard about space incidents
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photo credit: NASA
Flight #113 – Columbia, 2003
First Space Shuttle Columbia became news again only when it exploded
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photo credit: Javier Pedreira
Flight #135 – Atlantis, 2011
In 2011 many Americans seriously thought the space program was over
@timmermansr | #SMWRdamimage credit: XCORphoto credit: SpaceX
image credit: MarsOne
Never have we seen more development in space as in 2014
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You can often see the International Space Station! http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/
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Social Media changed the publicity game for @NASA
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#spacetweeps
Five social media lessons from the most powerful science community in the world:
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#1 – Social Media is a strategic choice
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7.5 millionfollowers
3.6 millionpage
followers
300 million+views
32 channels900,000
subscribers187 million views
800,000 followers
6,800 photos
18 TV channels,
always live!
600,000 followers
19,000 followers
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#2 – Use Social Media for what it was meant
Interaction!
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#3 – Storytelling: Make it personal
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Difficult to engage? Connect to something people know
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Astronauts are slowly becoming public heroes again
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A Social Media success story: @ESA_Rosetta
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Storytelling: How the world embraced @ESA_Rosetta
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Community engagement as taught by @KirstenWagenaar and @ElseKramer. It works!
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photo credit: ESA
Space is not about hardware. It is about human emotion!
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Feeding the #spacetweeps
#4 – Build a community of brand ambassadors
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photo credit: bunnicula
Is it still a secret? Combine online with offline!
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THIS is community management. Literally.
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2011 #STS135
#NASATweetup6,000 registrations
for 150 spots
@timmermansr #SMC055
@timmermansr | #SMWRdam
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100+ #NASASocial events have attracted over 3,000 participants
All staff is involved!
@timmermansr | #SMWRdamphoto credit: NASA/Bill Ingals
#NASASocial: Brand ambassadors for life, 100 at a time
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NASA has evolved into a world leading ‘Social Brand’
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Wanna build a Community? Just add Astronauts!
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#5 – Let the community do the hard work
When the community takes
over…
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What if the Social Media department breaks down?
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15 days15,229 posts
42.3 million impressions
#ThingsNASAMightTweet
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Community Management: Support Community Initiatives!
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Let your community do the hard work! @SpaceApps
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Social media lessons from space
for Earth
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Summarized
#1 – Social Media is a Strategic Choice
#2 – Use Social Media for what it does best: Interact
#3 – Storytelling: Make it Personal
#4 – Community Management: Feed the Ambassadors
#5 – Put your Community to work!
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Thank you#SMWRdam
@TimmermansR@TravelsInOrbit
@WorldSpaceWeek