title: A guide for using social media in environmental science and a case study by the Students of SETAC.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In the past few years, the use of social media has gradually become an important part of our daily lives. While some might see this as a threat to our productivity or as a source of procrastination, social media as a whole have unquestionably changed the way in which information and knowledge disseminate in our society.
  This article is meant to serve as a guide for scientists who would like to establish their online presence and includes an outline of the benefits of using social media as well as strategies for establishing and improving your presence in social media. Environmental scientists in particular can benefit enormously from this approach, since this field of science deals with topics that directly impact our daily lives.
  
  
  METHODS
  To highlight these approaches for our fellow scientists in the field of environmental science and toxicology and in order to better engage with our own peers, we describe the outreach methods used by the student advisory councils of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) and how we have worked towards an improved social media presence. In this article we present our initiatives to increase social media usage and engagement within SETAC. This includes joint social media accounts organized by the SETAC student advisory councils from various SETAC geographical units. We also led a course on social media usage at the SETAC Nashville meeting in 2013 and are currently developing other outreach platforms, including high school student-oriented science education blogs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Students of SETAC will continue to increase communication with and among SETAC students on a global level and promote the use of social media to communicate science to a wide variety of audiences.
authors.affiliation: Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, 300 Aronoff Lab, 318 West 12th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 USA.
authors.forename: Sarah R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Bowman
authors.affiliation: Centre for Environmental Research, University of Hasselt, Agoralaan, 3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium.
authors.forename: Geert
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Biermans
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin, 2208 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI 53706 USA.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hicks
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 7, 30-387 Kraków, Poland.
authors.forename: Dragan M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Jevtić
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4 Canada.
authors.forename: Jose Luis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Rodriguez-Gil
authors.affiliation: Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Biosciences Building, Crown Street, Liverpool, L69 7ZB UK.
authors.forename: Erica K
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Brockmeier
keywords: Environmental science; Facebook; LinkedIn; Mendeley; ResearchGate; Science communication; Science outreach; Social media; Twitter