WIKIMEDIA, FACEBOOK.COMSocial media is a powerful tool that can galvanize public support for conservation action. In a letter published in Science last October, researchers used an example of animal abuse in the context of the illegal wildlife trade to highlight the power of social media in bringing public attention to conservation issues (L. T. P. Ngiem et al., Science, 338:192-93, 2012). Based on our experience with Facebook, however, we caution that people are more likely to respond to issues that affect them on an immediate emotional level, which appears to be limited to certain aspects of conservation.
In 2011, we established a Facebook page to increase awareness of Malaysia’s wildlife and conservation issues, with 107 posts related to deforestation, poaching, human-wildlife conflicts, and species over a one-year period (August 2011–August 2012). According to Facebook Insights, which provides metrics on content consumption, our page content reached a mean of 157 (S.D. ± 219) “unique people,” a measure of the incursion of our posts into new Facebook feeds though reposting, daily.
On August 13, 2012, we “shared” a local tour operator’s photograph of snorkelers harassing an endangered green turtle (Chelonia mydas)—our first post depicting animal abuse. The post went viral, and by the following day reached 63,631 unique people (see graph), a staggering 405-fold increase in our daily total reach. The issue drew the ...
