Social media has deeply transformed the way people communicate ideas and information, shifting from traditional media forms (e.g. newspapers, television and magazines) to digital media; of which, Facebook and Twitter stand out in terms of...
moreSocial media has deeply transformed the way people communicate ideas and information, shifting from traditional media forms (e.g. newspapers, television and magazines) to digital media; of which, Facebook and Twitter stand out in terms of disseminating academic information and conservation outreach. Broad scientific communication and outreach have been highlighted as one of the most efficient methods to tailor people's behaviour towards environmentally-friendly practices. However, some concerns about the use of social media have been raised, particularly: the potential misinterpretation of inherently brief messages; the fast analysis of complex problems, situations or concepts; the fact that they can trigger misinformation cascades due to the time-sensitive and political nature of some conservation issues; an overestimation of potential outreach due to the homophilic effect; or the likelihood to suffer from information fatigue syndrome (IFS). We evaluated the presence of the scientific journal Barbastella-published by the Spanish Society for Bat Research and Conservation (SECEMU)-on Facebook and Twitter during a period of almost two years and its Twitter outreach performance during the Spanish Bat Research and Conservation Conference (SBRCC) in 2014. Since the launch of its Facebook and Twitter accounts, Barbastella has respectively gathered 1,935 and 931 followers. Several posts have potentially reached between 5,000-17,000 (Facebook) and 3,000-5,500 (Twitter) users and whereas the Facebook account presented an audience mostly composed by local researchers and bat enthusiasts from Spain and Portugal, the Twitter account had a much more international audience. During the SBRCC, there were more online (Twitter and Facebook) followers of the conference than in situ conference attendants, even though conference tweets were almost exclusively posted by the Journal committee. Our analyses reveal the large potential of Facebook and Twitter to disseminate information far beyond more classical tools and highlights that social media can potentially play an important role in conservation science, while serious consideration on its usage must be taken into account to reduce possible social media inherent weaknesses. Both social media platforms were found to be complementary suggesting that cross-posting on multiple networks can considerably improve visibility. In order to disseminate research without compromising time commitment towards other scientific tasks, it is essential to have a targeted strategy for using social media with an accurate and reasonable planning of online time commitment, addressing all public target time-zones, selecting the most appropriate platform, publishing understandable brief and visual posts with reliable information amongst other optimizing strategies.
