NASA's Twitter Account Wins Back-to-Back Shorty Awards

April 9, 2013

John Yembrick/Jason Townsend
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1584/202-358-0359
john.yembrick@nasa.gov / jason.c.townsend@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 13-103

NASA'S TWITTER ACCOUNT WINS BACK-TO-BACK SHORTY AWARDS

WASHINGTON -- NASA's official Twitter feed, @NASA, has won its second
consecutive Shorty award for the best government use of social media.


The Shorty Award honors the best of social media across sites such as
Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, Foursquare and others. NASA took
the prize Monday at the fifth annual Shorty Awards ceremony in New
York.

The @NASA acceptance tweet was, "We're sharing the universe 1 tweet at
a time. Be inspired! Follow @NASA & RT if you love science & space.
#ShortyAwards."

"Our success stems from inspiring content that connects with people,"
said David Weaver, NASA's associate administrator for communications.
"Our story of science and innovation resonates with everyone. Social
media enables us to reach people directly like never before."

The Shorty Awards also recognized NASA's @MarsCuriosity account as
Foursquare Mayor of the Year. Curiosity, a robotic rover, has been
using the mobile application Foursquare since October 2012 to check
in at locations it has been exploring on Mars. Users on Foursquare
can keep up with Curiosity as it checks in at key locations and posts
photos and tips.

Including Monday's two awards and last year's Twitter account
recognition, NASA now has five Shorty Awards. The agency also won in
2009 for its use of Twitter for the Mars Phoenix Lander mission, and
astronaut Doug Wheelock was awarded the Real Time Photo of the Year
in 2011 for his "Moon from Space" picture.

NASA uses almost 500 social media accounts to communicate its mission
to a wide range of followers. The @NASA twitter account has 3.8
million followers, the most in the federal government. NASA also
maintains presences on Facebook, Google+, Flickr, and other popular
platforms. NASA Socials, formerly known as NASA Tweetups, allow
social media followers to attend functions and interact with NASA's
engineers, astronauts and scientists.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's Twitter account, @Cmdr_Hadfield,
also was recognized Monday with the Shorty for the Best in Science
category. To follow Hadfield on Twitter, visit:

http://www.twitter.com/cmdr_hadfield

To find out more about Mars Curiosity and NASA on Foursquare, visit:

http://www.foursquare.com/NASA

For more information about the Shorty Awards:

http://shortyawards.com

To view all of NASA's social media sites, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/connect


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