Ray Dearborn's blog

Upwell’s unique model of “community management”

Ray Dearborn — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 22:10:59 +0000

One of the goals of Upwell was to empower the influential voices in Team Ocean to create and share content that would increase attention to the crisis the ocean is facing. While much of our time was devoted to creative campaigning and all-consuming research projects to meet that goal, there’s one important element we talked less about: community management.

My job was as much about communicating within the network of ocean influencers as it was about the ideas they communicated about with the world. Without a strong network, our campaigns would be like a fancy car with no fuel - they’d look nice, but they’d go nowhere.

In our pilot report of 2013, we detailed how we built our community from the ground up (page 54). Here’s just a selection of the community building activities we detailed in that report:

We attended conferences like the Blue Ocean Film Festival, Oceans in a High CO2 World, and Science Online. We provided in-depth feedback and data to groups like The Ocean Project and Conservation International on efforts like World Oceans Day and the Ocean Health Index. We sent our most loyal Tide Report subscribers postcards on a weekly basis, thanking them for being part of Team Ocean. We conversed with our peers on Twitter and retweeted their content when we couldn’t feature it in a Tide Report. We also did some strategic work to better connect the lingerers and lurkers in our network. We analyzed our Tide Report subscriber list against our Twitter followers and Facebook fans to understand how to more deeply engage people that were only aware of some of our activities.

When we asked people to sign up and join us, it wasn’t a one-time thing. Our welcome email, sent to new subscribers of the Tide Report, told them we were asking them to make us a commitment:

Our goal is to increase the number of social mentions about the ocean issues we all care about. To do that, we rely on you.
We know you care about the ocean, but it's not always easy to find great content to share. That's where we come in. We find, create, and package awesome stuff (videos, images, blog posts, and more), share it with you in the Tide Report, and in each issue, we ask you to spread them via your social channels (your personal and your organizational ones!)

At the root of our community building and managing philosophy is a commitment to provide value. We knew the people in our network wouldn’t amplify what we suggested unless they felt they were getting something from us. We did this by connecting people with each other, giving away our conversational research, and acting as a free PR service for captivating ocean campaigns.

Reciprocity is the currency of the internet. Whatever we received or found we then shared and amplified. This turn-up-the-volume effort helped many ocean influencers connect with audiences who might have missed them. The Tide Report, Upwell’s blog and social media channels, topic-specific webinars, plus staff speaking engagements, guest blog posts and project consulting have provided channels for delivering this value to a diverse audience of time-starved ocean activists.

Our method of influencer community management has been a hybrid of modern digital PR, offline community organizing, and online community management. One useful lens for our practice is this: we had a hub-and-spoke model, in which information flowed in, was filtered, and reflected back out. We weren’t placing ourselves at the hub in order to gain power or influence for ourselves, but rather to increase the power and influence of our peers.

Hub-and-spoke network or fully connected mesh network? A little of both.

Rachel thought of this as a concierge service for the nascent ocean movement, offering tailored tips and services to ensure a successful visit to the internet. We prioritized driving traffic and attention to our community members, rather than toward ourselves (which gave us lots of metrics-related headaches). We aspired to a fully connected mesh style network, wanting the members of the network to be visible to each other. What made our model unique is that we reflected our community back to itself, while adding a layer of insight. We did this on a regular basis, but we also had focused moments like the Sharkinar where we intentionally increased the size, impact and reach of a specific issue community.

These were some of the methods that defined our influencer community management model:

Targeted recruitment

As mentioned above, Upwell attended conferences and meetings and we asked people to join our network in person. Many of these people were identified and specifically targeted. Through our conversational research, we also identified online influencers around key ocean topics, and reached out to them over Twitter and email to ask them to sign up for the Tide Report and join our webinars. Our recruitment methods went into high gear around events like our #Acidinar and our #Sharkinar. We wanted to make sure the right people, who could significantly influence online conversation, would be on the phone.

Data services

A core part of Upwell’s work was around conversational data analytics. We had access to social data scraping tools that would have been prohibitively expensive for many organizations to access on their own. By taking the lens of movement-level metrics we were able to provide an entirely new service to a diverse community. Our analysis was sometimes shared in little bits, via our blog and the Tide Report, and sometimes shared in large chunks like our pilot report and our State of the Online Conversation reports about Overfishing and Ocean Acidification.

Content filtering

We received far more tips via our tips email line than we could possibly promote. And often, as I described in my blog post about creating shareable content, the tips we received had some, but not all the necessary elements to generate conversation. We often acted as a filter, receiving all the awesome work from Team Ocean, picking and choosing what to amplify (based on transparent curation criteria), investing creative resources to repackage when necessary, and reflecting back out to the community.

Holding up a mirror

This is the part of our community management that may feel the most familiar. By retweeting and sharing the content of our community, sharing job postings and calendar events, thanking individuals by name, and including the accomplishments of peers in our Tide Report, we simply kept our community members on each other’s radar. We held up a mirror so that our community members saw each other and understood how they all fit together as part of a larger team. As part of this friendly mirror responsibility, we’d also (metaphorically) tell influencers if they had spinach in their teeth, AKA a gentle heads up that if we saw an influencer sharing old/ inaccurate/debunked links.

What made it possible

As part of our work in documenting our community management practice, Rachel and I had a good long discussion yesterday about what familiar network metaphor best fits how we’ve approached this work at Upwell. It resulted in the inclusion of the hub-and-spoke and mesh network references above. But ultimately, we couldn’t quite settle on just one.

We’ve relied on being the hub, where people send their hot tips and look to when they want to know what to share. But we’ve wanted to do it relatively invisibly, in order to not steal any spotlight from our friends and oceany colleagues.

What’s made it possible is all of the individual relationships and the people who trusted us even if we didn’t have 100K followers on Twitter and weren’t the ones being interviewed about breaking news. That’s because our network was an amalgamation of friendships and close working relationships, and we are grateful to the loyalty of every single person. Thank you forever for your trust, and for sharing both your amazing ocean news and the attention of your followers.

Top six ways to ensure your conservation content gets shared

Ray Dearborn — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 20:04:18 +0000

In three years at Upwell, we’ve played a lot with content. We’ve remixed, rewritten, repackaged, curated, and amplified. We’ve looked for the most shareable content - the most captivating videos, the powerful images, the inspirational quotes - and tried to get more people to see and share. We’ve also looked for the content that was important and groundbreaking, but not yet shareable - the scientific studies, the policy papers - and tried to find ways to make it shareable.

Over the years, we’ve told you what we've learned about how to package your content so it’s the most shareable. Here are our top tips.

1. Always appeal to high energy emotions

Videos that merely educate are less shareable than those that tell a story that will captivate. There are a wide range of emotions you can appeal to, from awe to humor to fear to schadenfreude. When crafting your content, whether it’s a blog post, an image, or a video, think about what emotion you are trying to inspire.

Last year’s controversial Facebook experiment, which manipulated the emotions of Facebook users, showed that the emotions of your peers on social media influence your own. While we hate to use the findings of an experiment that toyed with basic notions of privacy, we did take away that if we want to inspire hope for the ocean, we should communicate hope. And, indeed, we have read that high energy emotions (like awe and excitement) are more likely to be shared than low energy emotions (like sadness or contentment), and positive emotions are more engaging on social media than negative emotions.

In our research into the online conversation about California’s marine protected areas (MPAs), we learned that social media posts that conveyed love and a call to protect MPAs were more engaging than those that merely educated audiences about MPAs. This is why we’ve invested so heavily at Upwell to promote the theme of #oceanoptimism, and we hope Team Ocean will carry this on.

2. Make sure your visuals not only tell a story, but communicate a value

By now, we all know that we should be sharing images or video with almost everything we post on social media. The goal of an image paired with your content is to visually convey a story, and importantly to do it in one highly-sharable glance, so that people are encouraged to click and learn more. We have found at Upwell that images that show humans interacting with the ocean help tell a story better than those that merely depict ocean creatures.

A story that conveys a value is even more shareable. (Think: not just “this fisherman is battling ocean acidification” but “this fisherman’s battle with ocean acidification shows us the consequences of our actions.”). Words superimposed over an image help convey a story and value, but the image chosen is just as important: it also ideally conveys essential elements of the narrative frame we’re strategically spreading. The postures, the background, and the demographics of those persons depicted all heavily set the story for the words we place on the picture.

People share because they wish to associate their personal (or brand) identity with the narrative depicted, and to tell their peers and friends that they think it’s a story worth listening to. Climate Access’s Ten Steps to Improving Energy Efficiency Imagery include great lessons for imagery in social media, even for those who are not focused on energy efficiency in their work.

This image, shared hundreds of times on Facebook, communicated not just information, but a value.

3. Provide shareable content with scientific reports

It’s a story we’ve all heard before: a scientific paper comes out and the media covers it in a way that the paper’s authors disapprove of. Either the findings are skewed or misreported, or the visuals paired with media coverage don’t tell the whole story. Most often, this isn’t due to a lack of integrity on the part of the journalist - instead, it is because the “so what” isn’t communicated clearly in the press release.

It is journalists’ jobs to find that “so what,” and if you don’t tell them what it is, they will try to find it on their own. Additionally, the graphics and photographs shared with scientific papers are often not high resolution or don’t immediately communicate the top findings, so journalists often turn toward stock imagery to pair with their articles. Check out Compass Online’s tips for sharing your science to learn more about how to arm journalists to explain your research correctly.

4. Adapt to the limits (and preferences) of your social media platforms

Even if your content appeals to emotions and values and it includes captivating imagery, if it doesn’t load correctly on Facebook, or if your image is cut off on Twitter, you’re missing a huge opportunity. Think: how many videos have you watched because they’re right in front of you, versus videos that you had to click two or three times to view? If you are sharing a video on Facebook, use Facebook’s proprietary video platform, as it plays automatically in the feed. If you’re sharing a video on Twitter, share it using YouTube because viewers won’t need to leave Twitter to watch it. Utilize Facebook’s og: tags to define what text and what image show up when someone shares a link to a page on your website. If you have a viewpoint to express, think about where you can share it that will encourage the most attention - it may not be your own blog, but instead might be one that has a highly engaged audience built in.

These steps take extra time (e.g., uploading your video to multiple platforms, and combining analytics for all platforms during reporting), but they lead to much higher engagement in total, and ultimately, more impact. If you use your own proprietary video platform, unfortunately your videos will not be playable on major social media networks. Think about how you can reduce the number of clicks between your audience and your content to one. Even two or three clicks can prevent you from getting your message across.

5. Unbranded is best, but less branding will do

People don’t want to share advertisements - they want to share content. Studies have shown that “Millennials,” the internet-native generation, feel more aligned with issues and causes than they do with organizations and brands. We’ve seen time and again that it isn’t necessary to put your logo on every image you create and share on Facebook, particularly if it is attached to a piece of content that communicates your value. In fact, unbranded content has the potential to be shared more broadly and ultimately generate more traffic toward the content you are sharing and more support for your cause. While you may be required to include your logo on public communications, use it only to support your message, and don’t lean on your brand to carry the message. Check out 350.org’s Facebook page for some great examples of unbranded and minimally branded content.

6. Simplify, simplify simplify.

When Upwell was creating images to share in our campaigns, we’d often go through ten versions before settling on one. Most often, we were trying to find a way to reduce the amount of text on the image, but we were also looking for the right image - the one that conveyed the right tone and message in the clearest way. We were also in constant pursuit of shorter, more digestible videos we could share, like MBARI’s anglerfish video that went viral late last year.

As passionate communicators, we want our audiences to know everything about an issue, to understand it inside and out. But when we create content that we want people to share, we can’t overburden that content with information. Choose one captivating idea, one opinion, one quote, or one statistic or fact, and lead with that. If you can “hook” people with that one idea, they will be excited to learn more. Want to know more about how to do this? Check out this story on Beth Kanter’s blog about an image that was worth 25,000 shares.

For more on Upwell’s approach to content packaging, especially as it relates to ocean content, check out the case studies beginning on page 61 of our Pilot Report.

While Upwell is closing this month, we know that the lessons from our work have been integrated into the outreach of Team Ocean. Follow Team Ocean on Twitter to find great content to share.

How an email strengthened a community

Ray Dearborn — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 23:46:49 +0000

From Anchorage on the 12th of October 2011, Kieran Mulvaney emailed this to Rachel Weidinger:

“I keep coming to the idea of a weekly or bi-weekly email newsletter, sent to as wide a mailing list of researchers, bloggers, journalists, foundation folks etc as we can pull together, with links to stories, videos etc, summaries of the major stories, and even a little editorializing. And while this may seem inside baseball, another case of the community speaking to itself, it’s a means to an end, a way to a) help ensure that we get sent latest news and info and included in the proverbial loop; and b) help our work be retweeted and forwarded by others with a sympathetic and interested audience.”

It was Kieran’s idea that would, with the visionary help of the Waitt Foundation, become the Tide Report. But we made one significant tweak to Kieran’s proposal: rather than being written for an audience of professional ocean wonks, our primary audience for the Tide Report was this: subscribers who would drive more attention, in measurable ways, to the crisis the ocean is facing.

It’s been nearly three years since we sent our very first Tide Report on June 5, 2012, and, as you can see, much has changed. As Upwell’s flagship missive, it’s the primary way we’ve kept in touch with ocean influencers and run our distributed network campaigns. It was never just an email newsletter, it was so much more.

What is the Tide Report?

The Tide Report’s primary purpose is to drive spikes in online attention to critical ocean issues. It was built to supply influencers who love the ocean with shareable content and easy pathways to amplify that content so that we could transform the conversation about the crisis the ocean faces.

While it was intended as a campaign tool, the Tide Report also served another important purpose - it helped ocean communicators see the work of their peers and understand how they fit into a broader movement. It cultivated a sense of “Team Ocean” and provided the members of that team with models for successful communication.

We’ve written 226 Tide Reports (as of Monday, March 2). Over the years, the style has changed somewhat, but one thing has remained consistent: with each Tide Report, we not only shared the hottest ocean news, but we asked our readers to amplify and share. The purpose was to use the email as a way to help Team Ocean see itself, connect you with the work of your ocean-loving peers, show you what stories, ideas and content get people talking online, and promote sharing, generosity and transparency within our movement. By amplifying the best ocean-y content at the times it mattered most, you showed the power of our collective voice to drive change across issue and organizational boundaries.

Through the Tide Report, Team Ocean amplifies great ocean content.

The impact of the Tide Report as a campaign tool to transform online conversation is reflected in our online conversation analyses like our “State of the Online Conversation” reports about ocean acidification and overfishing. But we rarely talk about the impact of the Tide Report as a community and capacity building tool, so I want to do that today.

Who reads the Tide Report?

While we aren’t at liberty to share the names and email addresses of our readers, we can share some basic stats.

Keep in mind the Tide Report doesn’t fit neatly into any email newsletter box. It lives in the vast gray space between a neighborhood listserv and an advocacy list. Our subscriber list is small in numbers (approximately 1500), but large in reach. We hand-built our list, targeting people who controlled channels where they can influence the public. Many of our subscriptions came out of in-person meetings, one-on-one collaborations, and attendance at meeting and conferences.

Tide Report list growth shows a consistent increase over time. (Light blue = existing subscribers, dark blue = additional subscribers.

Most of our subscribers (81%) are based in the United States. A significant portion of our readers have subscribed with their work addresses (31% end in .org, 5% in .gov, and 4% in .edu). Many additional subscribers are unaffiliated individuals who just have a passion for the ocean, or ocean conservation professionals that subscribed with their personal email addresses. Below is a graphic showing the breadth and depth of Team Ocean’s representation. All these organizations, institutions, and companies get the Tide Report too!

These are your colleagues on Team Ocean. With this network, we helped amplify attention to what matters.

What that community thought of the Tide Report

We’ve heard from Team Ocean that the Tide Report increased network resiliency, and helped many of the less influential, but just as passionate members of the team make their communications more successful. Last month, we surveyed our Tide Report subscribers, asking them if and how working with Upwell has changed the way they work or has connected them with resources. What we heard reflects the diversity of our readership:

While it’s unlikely that the this scientist’s activity (inspired by our content) directly spiked a conversation, the timely context we provided surely strengthened their communications:

“As a scientist, I am often disconnected with what is happening in the social media sphere, and the Tide Report has been a great way to understand what the general public perceives as current ocean-related issues.”

A secondary goal of the Tide Report was to continuously build social media skills through useful examples:

“Each Tide Report helped me learn about new ocean issues- and I'm not very adept at ocean media, so your guidelines on what to amplify, etc. really helped."

Many of our readers saw that by amplifying the content we suggested and provided, they not only helped draw attention to ocean topics, but they increased engagement on their own channels:

“We use many of the articles and images that come out of the Tide Report for our social media. By doing so, we've seen more engagement within our community members.”

Another secondary goal of the Tide Report was to hold up a mirror to Team Ocean, so its members could see each other and discover new peers:

“I was always surprised at the little nuggets of information I found in the Tide Report and would often find new partners to reach out to.”

We would often hear that reading the Tide Report became part of our readers’ workflow:

“My coworkers and I look forward to the Tide Report. Whenever one of us discovers something new or something catches our eye (every email there is something) we discuss it in our weekly meeting and then pass on the information to guests and volunteers we work with.”

Curation is a resource-intensive process, and we tried to efficiently provide a resource to Team Ocean by sharing the results of our curation widely:

“There's a TON of ocean news that I have to sift through daily, and every time I saw the Tide Report delivered to my inbox, I knew that there'd be some reliable, thought-provoking gems to add to the larger conversation.”

We didn’t target just ocean conservation professionals - many of the influencers on our list are interested in other topics, and we’ve put oceans on their radar.

“I loved the straightforward way the Tide Report showed what your key messages were, and directly asked readers to help amplify them. Additionally, while the ocean was not an area of environmental concern that I was very tuned in to prior to discovering Upwell, it's now something I am much more attuned to when I read the news, discuss conservation issues, and think about my impact on the environment.”

Tide Report engagement and greatest hits

If you’ve been a Tide Report reader for a while, you may remember some of our greatest hits. Recently, I pored through engagement data from our Tide Reports going back to November 2013. Since we usually talk about what resonates with the whole Internet, I thought it might be fun to narrow my lens and look at what resonated the most with our readers.

Here are the top links (measured by number of unique clicks) in Tide Reports since November 2013:

Upwell’s Buzzfeed article “Why you need to care about the Empty Oceans Act.” - February 7, 2014
The sea froze so fast that it killed thousands of fish instantly - January 17, 2014
The link to the job description when we were hiring a Tide Report writer - February 24, 2014
23 Fantastic Images Of The Incredibly Weird Things In The Ocean - October 27, 2014
MBARI’s captivating video about the Black Seadevil anglerfish - November 25, 2014
The succinct and well-researched Buzzfeed article, 13 Reasons the Ocean Might Never Be The Same - January 17, 2014
This mind-boggling and upsetting video of a super trawler at work, shared on Facebook by Ocean Defender Hawaii - December 4, 2014
David Shiffman expressing consternation in Scientific American at the emerging trend of shark riding - March 5, 2014
Lessons from 2014 from The New York Times’ social media desk - January 23, 2015
Pacific Standard delves into why Blackfish became so popular - January 24, 2014

These are the Tide Reports that were opened by the largest percentage of subscribers (excluding the first few months of the Tide Report, when open percentages were high but our list was very small). Note that the first three aren’t actually traditional Tide Reports, and are associated with the Upwell Transitions of 2013 and 2015, which goes to show that when you might go away, people pay attention. Numbers eight and nine below (and number 3 above) show that employment opportunities increase engagement. Even if you can’t hire someone, sharing other jobs is generous and a great way to spark interest!

Not a Tide Report (2013 Survey) - February 7, 2013
Tide Report: A time of transition - January 28, 2013
Bittersweet news from the Upwell team - January 12, 2015
Tide Report: A high-tech solution for plastic pollution? Also: Meet the Mermaid Death Squad - March 28, 2013
Tide Report: Upwell lessons to share, a hot OA video, NYT sustainable fish debate, and more. - March 5, 2013
Tide Report: In which we encourage you to NOT get any attention today. - April 19, 2013
Tide Report: Ocean acidification music video, Grocers reject GMO Salmon, and more - March 21, 2013
Wanted: Tide Report writer. Anchor-shaped referral bonus! - February 24, 2014
Tide Report: Upwell’s hiring (again); UNESCO sites to drown; river otter conquers alligator - March 7, 2014
Tide Report: Ocean education from TED, Sharkinar, CCAMLR, and all the lionfish you can eat. - July 10, 2013

Over time, our Tide Report has experienced unprecedented engagement rates from our readers. Our open rate has hovered consistently around 35% for the past three years, and our click rate has stayed consistent at 9-10%. These rates compare extremely favorably to nonprofit industry averages (13% open rate and 2.9% click rate), as reported by M+R and NTEN in their annual email benchmarks study. Because our list is small, and targeted toward people with high investment in our mission, we’d expect higher engagement rates than donor or action appeals from a traditional nonprofit. It’s still great to see.

What the Tide Report has taught me

So what have I learned from all of this? And what can the Tide Report community do to continue this work after the Tide Report ceases to be?

One of the challenges and biggest lessons I learned in my years writing the Tide Report was how to think about what will resonate. I had to think about what would resonate with the internet at large, a huge grab bag of people - most of whom have a very limited understanding of ocean conservation issues - as well as what would resonate with our readers. I had to inspire our ocean-literate readers to share, but encourage them to share content that would inspire those less familiar with these issues to share too.

Finding that balance was always tough. And sometimes our readers would share the stuff that was the nerdiest and wonkiest, instead of the stuff I had handpicked because it was shareable. Sometimes that totally nerdy thing was going to be a viral hit, and sometimes it just going to get 100 views and disappear. I wanted our readers to understand that we were carefully selecting things that we thought would resonate with a broader audience. One of the critical tools in my practice was our “Why We Choose” list - our curation criteria for what to amplify in the Tide Report. We strongly encourage people to create their own lists, to keep themselves in check and ensure that resources are put into the things that are most likely to succeed.

I also learned that Team Ocean is always eager to learn more. Our Tide Reports that focused on sharing lessons, hosting webinars, reporting back on surveys received incredibly high engagement from our readers. I encourage those on Team Ocean to share, share, share. Write sharing into your grant proposals! Budget time for packaging what you’ve learned. When campaigns or outreach efforts fail, give yourself time to think about why, and don’t be afraid to tell the story publicly. Sharing has been part of Upwell’s brand since day one. Find out how to make it part of yours. Let’s make ocean conservation open source.

Don’t be afraid to ask! I think there’s a culture of fear around asking people to share or retweet your stuff. But how else are you going to get your message out? Our entire model was based on a request to amplify, and while our readers didn’t always amplify everything we sent out, they did amplify the things that resonated with them. But they may not have amplified had we not asked. As we often say, do as Shiffman does (he is the king of “please RT”).

And, finally, when it comes to email lists, small and mighty is better than big and weary. Focus in on who your biggest supporters are. Who’s amplifying your message, and can they be recruited to be part of your team? Cultivate your network in a way that feels like that neighborhood listserv. We send out postcards or care packages to our BFFs. Even if we work on the internet, we live in real life. Let’s not forget that our “lists” are bunches of individual humans, with individual passions, pursuits, fears and regrets.

What have you learned from the Tide Report, and how will you start working differently? Tell us your reactions in the comments.

How can ocean conservation get more news coverage?

Ray Dearborn — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 21:38:57 +0000

A conversation with Lindsay Abrams of Salon

This was originally published at Medium. Read the full interview there.

NGOs and journalists don’t have to act like oil and water, despite what individuals in each industry say when they get a chance to air their gripes. As my organization, Upwell, prepares to shut its doors, I wanted to make an effort to bridge the gap between the ocean conservation community and the news media. I reached out to a few journalist friends of Upwell to get their perspective on what makes a great ocean story, how ocean scientists and advocates can better work with them, and what drives engagement from their audiences.

Today I share the first of those conversations, with Lindsay Abrams of Salon.

Lindsay has a pretty broadly defined sustainability beat at Salon. In just the new year, she’s covered ocean topics like the long-term effects of the BP oil spill, Arctic drilling, ocean warming, mass extinction in our oceans, and more. As far as climate and sustainability reporters go, she’s one of the few giving the ocean its fair shake amongst other environmental topics.

A little background on why I approached Lindsay: For three years I have been leading campaigns for Upwell. By playing in online conversations for years and doing in depth conversational analysis, we’ve learned what drives attention to conservation issues. Time and again we find that news coverage is the primary driver of attention to lesser known ocean conservation issues. While topics like shark conservation and plastic pollution frequently garner attention in the absence of news coverage, more unfamiliar topics like ocean acidification or deep sea trawling need attention from journalists and bloggers in order to spark conversation.

People aren’t talking about ocean acidification of their own volition, at least not in droves. Not yet. People do start talking about it when they have something to share, and that “something” is most often a news article or a blog post from an established media platform. This doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions (for instance, people-powered mobilisation, or attention motivated by pop culture influence), but it is the prevailing trend that we see in our Big Listening work. (For more on how people talk about ocean acidification, check out our recently released State of the Online Conversation report.)

I’m using the term “media” inclusively, to capture all shades of grey in today’s increasingly complex media landscape. Attention is driven not just by legacy media like the New York Times and the Washington Post, but also the media platforms that were born of the Internet like Quartz, Medium, Buzzfeed and Vox.

Despite this correlation between media coverage and attention, media relations and PR professionals in ocean nonprofits and scientific institutions struggle to craft the perfect pitch and share their content in a way that makes it likely to get covered by journalists and bloggers. My hope is that this interview will help people on both sides to do their jobs and raise attention to critical ocean conservation issues.

Read the full interview at Medium.com.

Bittersweet news: Upwell is shutting down.

Ray Dearborn — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 20:16:09 +0000

“It's time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and I'd much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure.” - Ernie Harwell, broadcaster.

Happy New Year to all of you on Team Ocean. We hope your holidays were restful and delicious, and that you’re excited for a 2015 of #oceanoptimism.

It’s hard to believe, but 2015 marks the fourth year of Upwell's existence. The Tide Report first fluttered into your virtual mailboxes in June 2012, and as you can see, it’s evolved a lot since then. We’ve covered a lot of ground: from ocean plastic cleanup schemes to ocean acidification warnings to Gangnam Style (remember when that was a thing?) on the Rainbow Warrior. Plus, of course, there have been plenty of random but necessary pictures of sea otter cuteness:

Yes, exactly like that. And outside of the Tide Report, Upwell has sharkinared and attention lab-ed, and oystered New York, and oh so many things, and none of it would have been possible without all of you, and it’s been wonderful which makes it so difficult to write this next sentence, but here goes.

Upwell will be closing up shop this spring.

Whaaaaaaaaaaat?

We know, we know. We feel the same way. But, while we are sad to deliver this news, we are also filled with hope.

Here’s the honest truth about how and why we’ve made this decision.

After two years of exploring a variety of funding options and models, we’ve been unable to secure dedicated ocean funding that is sufficient to maintain our core ocean programming. In partnership with our major funders, we’ve made the difficult decision to close down our program, with a likely end date of March 31.

We really tried to find a way to sustain Upwell, promise. Upwell has been interesting, fulfilling work for all of us. And it was worth fighting to keep this project alive - up to a point. Now, closing down is the right path for us as individuals and as an organization. While bittersweet, this is the right thing to do.

We were fortunate to be able to do this movement-level work, collaborating with so many organizations, scientists, journalists and passionate activists. We’re grateful to our funders and collaborators, and to our current fiscal sponsor the New Venture Fund, for believing in this work and helping achieve the great many successes we’ve seen since we began our little organization back in 2011. Many took a chance with us, in hopes of creating change and deep impact.

Thank you for your trust. Thank you for the many times you amplified the story that the ocean is in crisis. Thank you for all of your good advice and tips. Thank you for not giving up on the ocean.

We are not done yet.

Our focus for the next couple months will be learning and sharing. Over the past three years we’ve advanced Big Listening - a way to measure and understand conversations at scale - and found ways to amplify great content through networked campaigning in order to increase the attention to the most pressing ocean conservation issues. We’ve been so grateful to work with a community that is not only open to, but excited to learn about this new way of working, and we’ve so enjoyed watching Team Ocean grow.

From Sharkinars to acidification memes to baby seals, we’ve got lessons and memories abound. We want to hear yours too.

Here’s how you can help.

Consider this the beginning of a conversation about how the movement can carry forward this work. Tell us what you’ve learned through working with Upwell, and ask us your burning questions.

We'll be extending invitations to celebrate and learn from this community in a variety of ways over the next couple months - over email, social media, coffee, and video chats. (There may even be some rum involved.) To begin, we’ll be having an “open house” over Twitter tomorrow. Come to us with your questions and ideas, and the team will be standing by to answer.

Tuesday January 13, 11-1 PST/2-4 EST.
Upwell Open House - Participate in the conversation with the hashtag #upwell.

As always, send us your tips (or hopes, fears, missives, manifestos, dreams or ocean gossip) to tips@upwell.us. It goes from you, to all of us.

Onwards,
Rachel, Ray, Matt & The Good Ship Upwell

P.S. The most excellent Upwell team, past and present, has every intention of continuing to work in this (these!) veins. You should hire them, say I, Rachel. They are hilarious and brilliant and brave. Individual contact info here.

How to talk about California's marine protected areas online

Ray Dearborn — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 19:02:05 +0000

It’s been 15 years since passage of California’s Marine Life Protection Act, and two years since the completion of California’s new network of 124 underwater parks. Nonprofit organizations in California were critical players in achieving passage of the law and worked steadfastly to design the network in partnership with fishermen, scientists, and recreational ocean users.

This year, Upwell researched how people talk about California's marine protected areas online to learn what drives conversation and understand how to better engage Californians in paying attention to protected ocean resources.

While conversation volume about California's marine protected areas is relatively low, there is a big opportunity to increase attention and impact through creative and targeted communication strategies.

Daily social mentions for Upwell’s California MPAs keyword group (Radian6, 12/1/12-1/31/14).

Our findings show that most conversation about marine protected areas is educational in nature, but the content that drives conversation is celebratory and connects humans to marine resources. Talking about wildlife, explaining how MPAs work, and connecting with recreational and tourist activities helps increase attention.

In 2013, there were three reasons the conversation spiked:

Celebratory events, such as Underwater Parks Day or the birthday of California's MPAs
News coverage - most often about how MPAs are working
Meetings and conferences, such as the #MPAsWork Twitter chat in November 2013 and the California Central Coast MLPA Symposium in March 2013

We also learned, through conducting case studies on five specific marine protected areas (Farallon Islands, Anacapa Island, Point Reyes, Elkhorn Slough and Point Lobos) that there is a big opportunity for advocates, ocean managers and educators to tap into local conversations to curate content, find new audiences and connect with local businesses that can serve as brand ambassadors for marine protected areas and marine reserves.

Our recommendations have been compiled into a handy tipsheet for ocean communicators. Click below to download and print!

We held a public webinar on August 7 to present our findings. You can watch the recording or view and download our slides.

Special thanks to the Resources Legacy Fund for their great work in establishing and protecting CA marine protected areas, and for making this research possible.

The Official Upwell Toolkit for Saving Sharks During Shark Week 2014

Ray Dearborn — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 23:51:05 +0000

// This Toolkit is in progress.
// Have suggestions for what should go in here?
// Get in touch

Welcome to your home for shark-saving resources to help you defend, protect and celebrate sharks online during Shark Week (starting Sunday, August 10 at 9pm ET)!

There's a lot in here, so we've packed all the action-y goodies at the top, and pushed the background information to the end.

I. Being a Super Engager

The 2014 Shark Week Cheat Sheet (a one-page pdf packed with tips, info and the Shark Week schedule):
Shark Week 2013 by the Numbers Social media stats from last year's Shark Week
It’s Sharkinar Time: Are You Ready? Our promo blog post explaining the sharkinar
Recordings (July 24th and August 7th), Slides, and Notes from the two 2014 Sharkinars (Shark Week online briefings among conservationists)
Follow and engage with Shark influencers (Twitter lists to follow during Shark Week)
Rapid Response Kit for Busting Shark Myths (For when Twitter's going too fast for you to keep up)
#SharkWeek Social Media: How to Hack It (Social media tips for spreading science and conservation during Shark Week)
The best-est shark photos and videos to share and amplify
Don’t forget to ask you boss for flex time during Shark Week! Download our letter: I'll be in at noon, because sharks.

II. Background Information

Shark Week 101
Wikipedia
Shark Week 2014: The Good, The Bad And The Bloody
Shark Week Lineup
Shark Week Partners
Mashable’s Shark Week Feed
Discovery’s Save the Sharks Resources
Shark Week Official Online Channels:
Twitter| Facebook| Tumblr| Website| TVTag(formerly GetGlue)
Shark Week Debunking
Shark Week Doubles Down On Its Lies
Shark Week Opens With Fake Megalodon Documentary
Sharks Aren’t in the Great Lakes, but Testicle-Nipping Fish Are
The Best and Worst of Shark Week: Good for Sharks, Bad for Science

III. Even More Sharky Resources!

Where to find good, public domain and creative commons images (be kind to your content creators, always credit images!)

This toolkit is a living, breathing thing, so please send us suggestions for additions and alterations. Also, let us know what this toolkit helps you do, and we'll repay the favor by driving more attention to your content!

Shark Week Twitter Influencers

Ray Dearborn — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 23:43:52 +0000

Can you hear the BAAAAH-dum-beats of summer? Shark Week is coming! August 10 marks the beginning of the biggest spike in the online ocean conversation all year. To get you prepped and pumped for our Sharkinar, we’ve compiled the best, most influential users driving the shark discussion on social media. This time we’ve got a double dose of awesome, with our continuously updated list of “Shark Saving Influencers” and a new feature for this year, our list of the “Shark Week Super Tweeters”, those who led the pack in mentions and retweets from Shark Week 2013.

Subscribe to Upwell's "Shark Saving Influencers" and “Shark Week Super Tweeters” lists on Twitter to keep tabs on these influencers from the comfort of your own Twitter feed. We recommend setting up a column for each one in your Twitter monitoring tool of choice (we use tweetdeck) and keeping an eye on it starting now, and going all the way through Shark Week. Retweet, respond, and engage.

Some of our favorites from “Shark Week Super Tweeters”

Some of our favorites from “Shark Saving Influencers”

I'll be in at noon, because sharks.

Ray Dearborn — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 18:12:59 +0000

We keep going on and on about how important Shark Week is - "It's the Super Bowl of the ocean," "It's an unparalleled opportunity to connect with a massive shark fan base," "Sign up for the Sharkinar already," etc. - but don't think we haven't noticed one important detail.

Yeah, Shark Week happens at night. It's when you want to be vegging out, or having dinner with your family, or taking a long bath, or getting your groove on at the local club (ok, that one's for me). You may not necessarily want to extend your working hours so you can livetweet and make memes during shows that promote fake science. Or maybe you do, but you aren't getting the comp time or the overtime pay for all your awesome shark campaigning.

Well, Upwell's got your back. Send this letter to your boss, and if they have any questions, you can direct them straight to us.

It’s Sharkinar Time: Are You Ready?

Ray Dearborn — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 02:20:00 +0000

The Sharkinar is an annual meeting of shark loving ocean loving online influencers who want to use Shark Week to promote science and conservation. Hosted by Upwell. Register now!

UPDATE: Watch the Sharkinar!

Back in 2012, we told you that Shark Week is the single biggest moment for the online ocean conservation. Team Ocean heard the call and jumped in the #SharkWeek waters, and helped increase the volume of conservation and science in 2012 and again in 2013.

On a typical day, we measure between 30,000-50,000 online mentions of sharks. In 2013 the first day of Shark Week pushed shark mentions close to a million. As we never tire of saying, Shark Week really is the Super Bowl (or World Cup) of sharks.

"Shark Week is the Super Bowl of the ocean" #scio14 #scioresearch @WhySharksMatter @upwell
— Brianna Elliott (@BriannaWElliott) February 28, 2014

Through monitoring online convs, @upwell discovered that Shark Week is the "Super Bowl of the ocean!" #leanimpact pic.twitter.com/mhSbXz02Dj
— Jenn Yoo (@jooy8) January 24, 2014

#Sharkweek is the "social media Super Bowl" for the ocean. Trick= find the shark week for your issue. @fitz350 #SMoP14
— Rachel Katz (@hazeltrack) May 22, 2014

Shark Week 2014 is approaching faster than a scalloped hammerhead: it starts August 10. We want you to be ready for the ultimate ocean outreach event, so it’s time for Upwell’s third annual Sharkinar!

Our Sharkinars are online meetings that bring in scientists, activists, bloggers, journalists, tweeters, and nonprofits to share data, plot strategy, and complement each others Shark Week campaigns and grow the online conversation together, in a way that benefits the ocean.

Unsurprisingly, the strategies we shared for Shark Week are quite similar to those that Google just encouraged its affiliates to use during the World Cup.

What Google wrote about the World Cup: basically what Upwell has been saying about Shark Week for years. #win

Our first Sharkinar is Thursday, July 24 at 11 AM PST (2 PM EST). Now is a good time to start using the #sharkinar and #sharkweek hashtags to begin building momentum.