Building a community that thrives online

#ESA2012 twitter hash on 11 Sep 2012

Sandra Chung knows social media. As a communications specialist for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) she handles all things multimedia, including spearheading NEON’s Twitter feed (@NEONinc, with Jennifer Walton), and Facebook page.

Last week, Sandra wrote about the power of Twitter to open up a meeting (the Ecological Society of America’s 97th annual meeting, to wit) and start conversations both in the moment, and in the fallow days following the intense social mixer and heavy data-dump of the event. Here’s a sample:

For a few days in early August, the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) was a hot topic on Twitter. I know that because #ESA2012 was trending (right). There among the Internet memes and celebrity names was #ESA2012, a hashtag code that Twitter users used to flag tweets related to the meeting.

One of the hottest social media topics of the day was a scientific meeting. It wasn’t the first time that it happened, and it won’t be the last.

…continue reading “Building a community that thrives online, offline and after the meeting” at NEON Notes.

At ESA2012, Sandra teamed up with paleoecology postdoc and blogger @JacquelynGill to present a workshop on “Social Media for Collaboration, Outreach and Impact.” The duo covered the basics of Twitter operations and online etiquette, and delved into more complex questions with their audience, like how to engage personably while tweeting under the aegis of an organization.

If you missed the workshop, flip through their slides, embedded in Sandra’s NEON Notes post, for an overview.  But to get the whole story, you really had to be there as Jacquelyn and Sandra passed the lead seamlessly back and forth, fielding continuous questions and comments from the audience (corporeal and Twitter-projected) in the best unconference style, and making this feat of facilitation seem easy. The conversation is ongoing. Check it out at #ESA2012.


Find more Portland 2012 blog highlights under EcoTone’s ESA2012 tag.