Science Diplomacy

An overview by Elvira Felix

Overview
The following are suggestions, resources and opinions that were observed and noted
within a 6 month period at the Center for Science Diplomacy.
The Journal
The Journal:
● Increase readership
● Provide tools/resources
● Increase well-written, original
submissions that are based on
academic research, and/or expert
opinions
 ● New Social Media graphics
● Paid advertisements on social media

New Strategies
● Do a survey of audience to get their interests in
new topics and to rate their satisfaction with the
journal.
○ Base new strategies on survey
Social Media
Social Media Platforms:
● To increase traffic to website
● To increase engagement
● To increase followers to share key
messages and news about science
diplomacy
 April - August 2016

Trend analysis April - August 2015

Total New Users, FB and Twitter

Followers

Data displays small increments of followers.

Client Implications:
● Algorithm changes in FB & TW shows the
anticipated effects for organizations/businesses that
solely depend on organic reach
● Increasing reach to increase followers = budget for
social media advertising.

TW FB Users Total
 ‘Science Diplomacy’ is not a topic that has new
stories everyday. But placing the following in
google search helped me to find both present
and past relevant articles.

Always Google search with quotes for specific

phases, i.e.‘topic’:

Resources
● “Science Diplomacy”
○ Select News tab
● “Science Diplomacy” blog
● “Science Collaborations” and/or “Science
partnerships” + Policy
● “Science Policy”
● Google key figures in news: i.e. Sumaya, Peter
S:\Projects\Science and
Diplomacy\Communications\Social Media\Images Gluckman, Bill, etc.
and quotes ● Marga is great resource
● Tweets and suggestions from Gadi and the social
media managers team.
 The following are various strategies that have
seen positive results:
● Draft and schedule old articles with tags to
authors and their affiliations for traffic.
○ If I could, I centered these old articles
around relevant news and/or UN
international holidays. Such as.
■ World Elephant Day - Norman

New Strategies
■ South to South Cooperation
■ Elections i.e. Hillary Clinton
■ #TBT or #ThrowbackThursday
● New Quote Template designs
● Posting grant opportunities for international
science collaborations and events.
Additional New Strategies ● Scrolled through twitter to find relevant twitter
Twitter Chats
hashtags to engage audiences, i.e. awards
● Located and tagged TW handles with high
followers.
 The following are some popular ways to gain
more followers:
● Twitter Chat, if we don’t organize it than we
should find a venue, like USAID, State, etc. Marga
would be perfect.

New Strategies
● Science Soapbox: Partner with them!!! Link them
with science diplomacy authors and share their
work.
● Periscope, blab, FB video are all the latest fades on
social media. Steller is also very cool, but its
image based. Maybe in the future?
Moving Forward
Templates
Update social media templates to
prevent advertising blindness.
Currently, the templates follow
branding standards:
● Blue - Center for Science
Diplomacy and Science
Diplomacy Journal
● Red- For events
● Gray- I would like to see this
color for another template,
like news, or just the journal
quotes, etc.
More Holidays & Events
A list of relevant UN holidays of the
year that can be incorporated with
Science, diplomacy, etc. Essentially
an editorial calendar for social
media. I think Gadi and the team
should get involved. I.E.
● World Ocean Day
● White House Science Fair
● UNGA event in NY
Photos, Images,Video
● Photos with Marga, Bill,
Tom, visiting scholars etc. at
events/engagements etc.
● Incorporate infographics or
pictograms of present and
past articles that have
interesting data, or ideas.
You can create whole
campaigns on one subject,
etc
● Live Interviews: Blab, FB
video, periscope and Science
Soapbox, and twitter chats
Events
 Incorporating technology for events is imperative in
this day. Below are a list of platforms that may be of
interest.
● Cvent
○ I mentioned this earlier in the year, I’m glad
we’re moving forward with it. I would also
suggest utilizing the platform’s mobile app
and surveys for consistency, and for
luncheons. If not, then the following could be
used:

Resources
● Eventbrite
● Event Farm
● For larger and longer conferences:
○ Social Tables
○ Event Up
● Evernote or Google Docs: for rapporteurs and report
S:\Projects\Center for Science Diplomacy\Science ● Live stream using:
Diplomacy 2017 Conference ○ Google Hangouts
○ Live with YouTube
○ Periscope
○ Facebook Video
Moving Forward
Advertising Budget Low-Cost Advertisements
Below are suggested avenues for Below are free or low-cost
paid advertisements: suggested avenues:
● AAAS newsletter
● Science ● AAAS DC member lists
● Foreign Policy contacts (4k)
● Facebook ● Invitation postcards for VIPs
● Twitter for Bill, Marga, Tom to give
● LinkedIn ● Eventbrite
● Allconferences.com
● Specific science field
associations that are aligned
with sessions, i.e. ocean
Photos & Video
● Change the photographer,
choose a photographer that
is familiar with getting
candid shots at events.
○ Provide a shot list i.e.
people, particular
sessions, etc.
● Video - there was no
oversight for copy errors.
Repeatedly had to point out
mistakes for each new edit. I
would seek another vendor.
Moving Forward
Branding & Publications
The marketing team are an
excellent, talented team. I strongly
suggest you utilize them for all
things printed to stay modern and
relevant.
● Request a template, and you
can fill in the information
yourself in Indesign. This
would allow time for
procrastination.
● OR Hire a freelance graphic
designer
Marketing Strategy
I created the event logistics
timeline, but a marketing strategy
needs to be developed. This should
include the following:
● Budget
● Social Media
● Email correspondences
Volunteers and Event Planners
Volunteers:
● In the morning 4 volunteers,
3 to register and 1 runner
○ Afternoon: 1 runner
& 1 to register
● Must have at least 1 wait
staff
● At least 1 or 2 freelance
event planners to help
Caitlin, i.e. live tweeting,
podcasts, live videos,
logistics etc.
Website
Website Objectives:
● To increase traffic
● To provide tools/resources to
science diplomats
● To INFORM. CONNECT. ENGAGE
 Below is a summary of issues to
review, however the AAAS website
team is aware, but I believe that they
don’t have the capacity to address:

Points of Concern
● Approval Option- doesn’t work
○ Deletes drafts, if sent
● Certain functions work in Chrome and in
Internet Explorer.
○ Photo pop-up freezes in Chrome
○ The url link is wonky.
● Tom had some issues as well, I asked for a
summary but no response as of yet.
● Facebook post summary sometimes embeds
jibberish. Both AAAS and Gadi know this.
 Using images of graphs, invites, and excel sheets
isn’t user friendly and it doesn't encourage
sharing to increase traffic. Embed google
docs/sheets/graphs etc. to encourage guest to
stay on page longer. Plus, it’s easier than the
option we currently have to do.

Resources Other suggestions:

● For Invites
● Eventbrite (to embed)
● Cvent (should have an option to embed
 ● Hire a Drupal developer to finish developing the
Science Diplomacy website, for example:
○ Program the various style fonts
○ Program image sizes
○ Program the link options, etc

● Science Diplomacy Career Page:

○ I emailed Tom, Bill, and Marga for a

Moving Forward
response to a young woman interested in
the field. Disappointingly, there was no
response. Nurturing the future in this field
is just as important as nurturing the
high-profile VIPs now.
○ I suggest creating a page that provides
advice and resources, after all, we do have
students as an market audience!
● List of recurring international grants of interest to
science diplomats
Moving Forward
Videographer
Update social media templates to
prevent advertising blindness.
Currently, the current templates
adhere to the following branding
standards:
● Blue - Center for Science
Diplomacy and Science
Diplomacy Journal
● Red- For events
● Gray- I would like to see this
color for another template,
like news, or just the journal
quotes, etc.
Photographer
A list of relevant UN holidays of the
year that can be incorporated with
Science, diplomacy, etc. Essentially
an editorial calendar for social
media. I think Gadi and the team
should get involved. I.E.
● World Ocean Day
● White House Science Fair
● UNGA event in NY
Contact Database
● Photos with Marga, Bill,
Tom, visiting scholars etc. at
events/engagements etc.
● Incorporate infographics or
pictograms of present and
past articles that have
interesting data, or ideas.
You can create whole
campaigns on one subject,
etc
Intern
Embassy Contacts: Science Diplomacy Article Quotes
Craig and I decided to breakdown the contact list The new quote templates I made were from
by country. You will also see the original tab. I his files.
strongly believe this should be a priority. Contacts
are everything in DC and it’s obvious that it’s Various Files Saved Here:
needed for events. AND it can be shared as a tool ● S:\Projects\Science and
online!! The most common issue I heard from
Diplomacy\Communications\Social
scientists is, “Who do I contact?” Unveil it at the
Media\Images and quotes\Intern Quotes
conference. It would be the most trafficked page, I
guarantee it. You will thank me later.

SciDip Embassy Contact List:

● S:\Management\Mailing Lists
Intern
SciDip Video Clips:
There is a host of potential video clips to edit for
distribution to promote 2017 SciDip Conference.
However, there was a lot of back and forth with
Heming about errors. I can’t open the link,
download or upload due to limited RAM on my
computer. (yes, IT was contacted, present desktop
is insufficient for this work.)
SciDip Embassy Contact List:
● S:\Projects\Center for Science
Diplomacy\Science Diplomacy 2016
conference\Videos\Video Clips
Science Diplomacy journal
Craig provided us his fresh perspective on
recommendations for the journal, which were
all very good and should be considered. I
believe this can be summarized a bit and can
be placed in the Information for Authors
page.
The File is Saved Here:
● S:\Projects\Science and
Diplomacy\Editorial\Processes\Style
 ● Rapporteur Report:
○ S:\Projects\Center for Science Diplomacy\Science
Diplomacy 2016 conference\Report
○ Missing several reports, Marga likes the design.
She’s looking for the rest of them.
● I would like to suggest the following graphics for social
media.
○ “We’re accepting submissions” image
○ Sign up to our receive SciDip updates, etc
● Contact Database:

Misc.
○ This needs to be a priority. Internal staff do not
have the capacity to clean out the system. Interns
should never do this job. They hate it and never do
it properly.
■ Hire a temp. staff to clean up the database.
■ Work with Elaine to send an email out to
everyone about their interests in receiving
the journal, what topics they want covered.
Mandatory: ask for titles, affiliations and
interests for future events.
■ Look into a real Contact Database
software if Exact Target isn’t appropriate.