World Oceans Day! Sea Signals from the week of June 4

Last Friday was World Oceans Day. Upwell had a busy week amplifying the efforts of the many organizations and individuals who contributed to the day of celebration. 

#worldoceansday

Most of our World Oceans Day outreach happened by amplifying the #worldoceansday hashtag on twitter. We looked for interesting content being shared through social media channels and jumped into conversations that people were having about World Oceans Day. It was a full-time job to monitor the #worldoceansday hashtag, which bodes well. More people talking about the oceans? That’s our goal.

Here are the highlights:

• We helped spread the word by creating a compilation of all the online actions people could take for World Oceans Day, coming from organizations and individuals like The Ocean Project, One World One Ocean, The Nature Conservancy, NRDC, The Living Oceans Foundation, and more. We used Tumblr because it was the easiest way to collect different types of content from multiple sources in one place and keep it updated as more actions crossed our path.

• We reached out to individuals who were talking about what they could do for the oceans on Twitter and Facebook, directing them to this round-up. (Twitter outreach viewable on Topsy) 
• We created and shared a YouTube playlist of videos curated from various organizations, and reached out to those organizations on Facebook and Twitter to let them know their videos were included. (Twitter outreach)
• We wrote a blog post on our own website to share the round-up, the playlist, and other ideas for celebrating World Oceans Day, and shared it via Facebook and Twitter. (Twitter outreach)
• We participated in and amplified @WhySharksMatter’s #OceanFacts conversation on Twitter. He asked people to post facts about the ocean for World Oceans Day and received hundreds of facts. He is currently developing a Storify to capture it (stay tuned...).
• We also reached out to celebrities and influencers who could potentially move the conversation to a bigger audience. Leonardo DiCaprio was vocal about World Oceans Day and was a prime target. We also targeted Alyssa Milano and Lady Gaga, who are active in conversing with their fans and followers. We were unsuccessful in gaining their attention.

Through retweeting, mentions, and more, our #worldoceansday twitter activity had more than 100,000 impressions. 

We Learned

There are commemorative holidays around every turn, from Foot Health Month (April) to World Water Day (March 22) to National Play-Dough Day (September 18) to World Toilet Day (November 19). While they provide good fodder for content, we were interested in using World Oceans Day to spark real action and conversation.

Of all the tweets we sent out, the most popular were inspirational and easily retweetable. This included quotes, interesting facts. Infographics were also popular. Our compilation and other tweets that encouraged action were less popular. 

While we tried to focus on action by compiling all the things that people could do with the day, the link to our compilation was shared more than it was clicked. We’re learning how to increase social mentions of the ocean, and we were successful. However, measuring the action that came out of those mentions is a bit trickier.

Most retweets, shares and likes happened through the community of ocean organizations and individual ocean activists. One of the most successful tactics we used to broaden the conversation beyond this core group was to start up a conversation with people who weren’t already talking about World Oceans Day. 

Successfully reaching out to celebrities requires an ability to cut through the noise. Something to consider for the future would be to ask numerous people to echo your ask to an internet influencer or celebrity. If they hear it from multiple voices, it is far more likely that they will act. 

Odwalla & Ocean Conservancy

For each person who takes the pledge on Causes to do 1 good thing for the planet, Odwalla will donate $1 to Ocean Conservancy, up to $20,000, in support of their ongoing programs. (Full disclosure: Upwell is incubated by Ocean Conservancy).

Amplification & Reaction

In order to reach folks outside of the ocean community, we searched on Twitter for people who had tweeted any of the following words, or phrases: love Odwalla, love ocean, Odwalla, #Odwalla, for the planet, for our planet, Earth Day, #Earthday, World Environment Day, #WED2012, and green. From our search results, we looked for people whose profiles and tweets indicated an interest in environmental topics, but who weren’t affiliated with an ocean conservation organization. We let them know about the fundraiser.

Upwell’s Twitter account received a new follower out of the outreach, but none of the people we tweeted replied to our tweets, RT’d them, or favorited them. 

We Learned

We’re left with the question:  Is it possible for Upwell to spread the word about ocean-related fundraisers if the people we’re reaching out to aren’t necessarily familiar with the organization’s work?

Living Oceans Foundation Webinars

After we included a photo from the Living Oceans Foundation in our Goliath Grouper Pinterest Board, they reached out and asked us to help spread the word about their World Oceans Day webinars about the Galápagos Islands, coral and climate change. We said, “We’d love to!”

Amplification & Reaction

We searched Twitter for people who had recently tweeted about Galápagos, coral, climate change, or the recent The New York Times article, “In the Galápagos Islands, a Bigger Center for Divers.”  Of the five people we tweeted about the webinars, three them of them shared, or RT our tweet. Two of the three began following @LivingOceansFdn. 

We also sent out a tweet about the webinars to all of Upwell’s followers. One tweet included info about the webinars, and one included info about the webinars + a link to a video by Living Oceans Foundation of a whale shark in the Galápagos. One person RT’d the tweet with just the webinar info, and one tweeted about the webinar + video.

If all of the followers of everyone who shared our tweets about the webinars saw them, we would have reached about 21,600 people.

We also shared the video on the Upwell Facebook Page where 42% of the people who liked our page saw it.

Finally, we left a comment on The New York Times article, “In the Galápagos Islands, a Bigger Center for Divers,” with information about the webinar, and a full disclosure that we were with a nonprofit social media pr agency that amplifies ocean stories.  They didn’t publish the comment.

We Learned

• It's difficult to fit a lot into a tweet when you have to include the person you’re sending the tweet to, a hashtag (#worldoceansday), and a bitly link (for the webinar info page)
• When you send a tweet directly to someone, don't follow their user name with another user name, or it looks like they're part of the tweet.  (e.g. @bbravo @livingoceansfdn is having 2 free ‪#WorldOceansDay‬ webinars re: Galápagos ‪#coral‬ + ‪#climatechange‬ http://bit.ly/L8iN2A). Instead, try using TYMLTK (thought you might like to know) to separate user names
• It was difficult to find people who were tweeting about the Galápagos, coral, climate change, or the NYT article who weren't ocean conservation organizations, were individuals with over 300 followers, and whose profile and tweets indicated that they might be interested in the webinars’ topics.
• Sadly, it doesn’t pay to disclose you are from a nonprofit social media PR firm in the comments of The New York Times.