Activism in Social Media
Over the course of about two months, I have taken to the social media platform X as a means to share research, practice effective science communication, and advocate for animals facing a wide range of issues. At first, I was finding and resharing a range of information tweeted by researchers, organizations, and animal experts. Now, after learning how to successfully incorporate hashtags, appealing images, and concise, informative captions, I have begun to focus my tweets on an issue I am passionate about. It's extremely rewarding when other accounts engage, and I have seen how effective social media can be at spreading awareness and finding communities with similar interests.
Successful Tweets
Of all my tweets, these two generated the most overall engagement. Although the infographic is a retweet (see left), my caption adds to the initial post by asking an opinion question. It presents an opportunity for someone to share their opinion on a debated topic, demonstrating how I am learning to create conversations with my classmates and using social media for animal advocacy.
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The tweet regarding animal intelligence (right) includes a concise caption with an eye-catching image. This was one of my first tweets, so including these elements was to show I was learning how to use social media for effective science communication and how to incorporate multimedia tweets.
An Unsuccessful Tweet
Despite being one of my later tweets, this post got almost no engagement. When I first found the article, I remember wanting to share it because I felt like it gave a new perspective on why dog advocacy is so important. The tweet was attempting to practice concise writing in multimedia tweets. However, I failed to include a more engaging image, and my caption failed to spark interest. Knowing most of my curret followers are coming from a research perspective, I should have done better connecting to that focus.
Social Media Campaign
This campaign was completed on Twitter over the course of seven days. Each day, I posted three tweets about stray dogs highlighting the issues they face, solutions to improve the lives of these dogs, and organizations working to help these animals. At the end of the week, I also created an infographic! It was a great project that encouraged me to create effective, multimedia advocacy tweets. Check out what I shared at my day-by-day planner below!
HUNGER
This turned out to be one of my most effective tweets about a problem stray dogs must overcome! It had some likes, a repost, and a decent amount of views. I think it was effective to capitalize keywords as well as the link to a short video as opposed to an article. Videos tend to be better at appealing emotionally, which was my goal when posting about these issues.
EXTREME WEATHER
This was the most viewed post on my page! I think the combination of the capitalized beginning phrase, an eye-catching emoji, and a saddening image caused others to stop scrolling and want to read more. It is a great example of my understanding on how to create and use multimedia tweets for advocacy.
FEED A STRAY
As a tweet focused on a solution for these dogs' hunger, I made sure to select a bright, simple picture and a trending hashtag to attract interest. I believe that including these is why my post was able to get a like and a repost and why I chose it as one of my best tweets.
ENGAGE
While researching different solutions, community engagement was one of the most attainable options. Effective tweets elicit emotion from a viewer, and I think this suggestion successfully gave viewers a new perspective of how easy it is to support the cause, which is why I chose it as one of my best tweets.
Check out Four Paws USA!
Four Paws is dedicated to helping animals worldwide that live in unsustainable conditions or in dangerous areas. They are established internationally, and I wanted to share a way to get involved and support them. This tweet about becoming an ambassador was my best tweet because it was a concise way to encourage getting involved.
Check out Humane Society International!
HSI rus campaigns advocating for a wide range of animal issues. To showcase their activity, I posted a tweet approving of their work. I consider this my best tweet because it intrigues interest in viewers while incorporating multimedia elements.
This infographic was targeted towards my community. I wanted to provide a more local perspective on the issue and how best we can support the stray dogs living in our area. I tried to make this visually appealing and concise while still informative and persuasive.
