Social Media at NIOSH – The Year in Review

Categories: Media

January 30th, 2014 11:14 am ET - Blog Coordinator

Farm in Alaska's Matanuska Valley

Pregnant Lab Worker

Last year in January we highlighted the top blogs of the previous year. This year we are taking it one step further to include our top contributions from 2013 across all NIOSH social media channels. It may be news to you that NIOSH is active in some of these areas. If you didn’t know NIOSH was on Facebook or had a Linkedin account, add “exploring NIOSH social media channels” to your list of New Year’s resolutions.

While NIOSH continues to pursue our rigorous science, using social media not only helps us reach a broader audience with our results but allows us to provide information in a format popular with many. The Pew Internet Research Project found that in 2013, 73% of online adults used social networking sites. Be sure to “like” “tweet” or “pin” NIOSH next time you visit the social media channels highlighted below.

Flickr

In 2013 NIOSH revamped its Flickr site

. The new and improved site includes high quality photos that can be searched by sector. All photos are available to the public and have been vetted by a subject matter expert for accuracy, and adherence to OSH best practices. Two of our most popular photos from 2013 are included above.

NIOSH Science Blog

The NIOSH Science Blog posted 36 blogs in 2013. The blog has nearly 19,000 views each month and 32,000 subscribers. Top posts in 2013 include:

Facebook

The NIOSH Facebook Page

has 20,143 likes at last counting.
Popular posts in 2013 include:

NIOSH Program: Safe • Skilled • Ready Workforce Initiative
- Reached 7,859
First NIOSH Comic Helps Dispel Internet “Myth” Do nail guns fire with the same velocity as hand guns?
- Reached 5,614
NIOSH Safety and Health Topic: Heat stress
- Reached 5,400

NIOSH also has Facebook pages for

YouTube

In 2013, NIOSH posted our 100th video clip on YouTube. NIOSH YouTube videos have been viewed more than 183,000 times and the NIOSH YouTube channel

has 550 subscribers.

Popular NIOSH YouTube playlists in 2013 include:

Twitter

NIOSH has 14 Twitter accounts with more than 250,000 combined followers. The most popular is @NIOSH

, which tweets general occupational safety information. Our other accounts, like @NIOSHNoise and @NIOSHTransport, cover specific industries or hazards. We shared around 8,000 tweets this year (and were retweeted or mentioned about 18,000 times in return).

The NIOSH Total Worker Health LinkedIn Group

has connected over 600 professionals from around the globe to discuss issues related to the integration of health protection with work-based health promotion and the advancement of total worker health and well-being.

NIOSH started a Workplace Safety and Health board on Pinterst

in 2013. We have 28 pins and 1,445 followers. Our top pin of 2013 is a fact sheet on Cold Stress

. Check out our other pins and watch for new submissions in 2014.

Wikipedia

While Wikipedia is not a social site, it does involve collaborative editing. The articles on the site provide a starting point for millions of topics, including topics relevant to occupational safety and health. The credibility of the material on Wikipedia hinges on the strength of its citations. Of note, NIOSH material is cited by more than 900 unique articles. Approximately 20,000 Wikipedia readers enter the NIOSH website every month for more information.