Social Networking: An astronomer's field guide

TL;DR

This paper explores how social networking platforms can be effectively utilized for astronomy outreach and education, highlighting application development, audience analysis, and promotion strategies.

Contribution

It provides a practical overview of integrating social networking tools into astronomy outreach, including web application development and audience engagement techniques.

Findings

Social networking enhances astronomy outreach effectiveness.

Web analytics tools help understand audience demographics.

Social bookmarking broadens outreach to unexpected audiences.

Abstract

We present a brief introduction to the phenomenon of "social networking" and its potentially powerful use as an astronomy outreach and educational tool. We briefly discuss the development of applications for websites and facebook and the use of web trackers e.g. Google Analytics to analyze your audience. Finally we discuss how social bookmarking can be used to promote your work to unexpected audiences.