UkWaspWatch Still Needs You

It’s now three weeks since we launched our wasp tracking service UKWaspWatch on Twitter, aimed at finding out what’s happening to the wasp populations around the country. It’s still very early days, but the application has been attracting some great comments online, with websites such as Social Media Today, Brand Republic and TechRadar talking about it. In the first two weeks it  attracted around 150 tweets, with a potential reach of approx. 350,000 people on Twitter alone, which just goes to show the power that social media has in today’s online world.

Social media can have its drawbacks (as discussed here by HubSpot) but we want to use it as an additional channel to reach our customers. We want to converse and that necessitates us being ‘social’. Human beings love to talk, to engage one another, to relate on a personal level and, importantly, to share – interests, ideas, things, stuff….. In our everyday lives we talk about things we find interesting, quirky, cool and new. I don’t know about you, but I generally share things like movie reviews, music, funny videos or interesting or shocking news stories. So when we publish new blog posts, that’s why we mix up the content styles and formats a fair amount. It’s to keep the style fresh and interesting.

So www.UKWaspWatch.co.uk is a prime example of social media in action. We wanted to try and gauge the effect that the very cold winter has had on wasp populations in the UK, and we wanted to encourage you to help us by facilitating a natural sharing behaviour. It’s a new and social way of reporting the locations of wasp sightings, stings and nests. So over to you – have you checked out UKWaspWatch yet? Have you taken part?