Sharing sustainability stories: Case study of social media content curation for Canada Research Connections

What is the best way to break through all the online noise with the vital message of sustainability? This paper details a case study on the strategic use of social media, where content curation tactics are employed to share scientific information related to sustainability. This type of marketing approach is currently under-utilised in both environmental marketing and scientific communication. The study finds that the best practices in the online marketing literature are profoundly useful for spreading sustainability messages to the public via social media platforms. Best practices such as knowing one’s audience, using visuals, maintaining a positive message and providing value make it possible to grow reach, even with a topic that is somewhat dry and unlikely to inspire sharing. In a world where information overload is a pressing concern, content curation is a valuable tactic in every digital communicator’s toolkit, allowing even scientific, technical and sustainability communicators to build communities with relatively low resourcing requirements. This shows how content curation can be highly effective in cutting through internet ‘noise’, even in challenging or non-typical communication situations.