My session proposal was accepted for Science Online 2012 at Raleigh, NC! Below is the finalized version of the abstract. My friend and colleague Emily Finke proposed an overlapping session and we decided to combine our powers. I am very excited to be organizing this discussion with her! Here is a draft outline of all the sessions, about 70 in total!

Understanding audiences and how to know when you are *really* reaching out
Kevin Zelnio and Emily Finke

Who is your audience? Do you write for anyone who will listen or do you target specific groups? How do you know you are reaching anyone? How do you address audience ignorance without making your audience feel ignorant?

This session will explore taking a science communication pluralism approach to maximize the number of audiences we can reach. Some writers want to reach other scientists or professionals in their fields, some view their online activities as “broader impact” or outreach, while others write for publishing outlets and others write for whoever pays attention! Audiences are segregated by age class, geography, career, background knowledge and other random interests and often use widely different social networks for finding, aggregating an sharing content. How can we manage the balance of voice, scientific accuracy and tailoring content to appeal to a wider variety of audiences? How can we best communicate to different audiences without making anyone feel either ignorant or bored?

Let’s discuss how science writers craft their content to cater to more than one audience, how they can address lack of basic background knowledge, how social networking is utilized and can be further harnessed and whether social media (and which types) make any difference in pimping your content out for a broader reach. What are the appropriate metrics to measure impact across a diverse array of audiences and more importantly what metrics do we need that are currently not available or accessible on freely available web stats software?