social media + photo guide

Facebook • Try to limit posting to just once a day, but post multiple times a week

(aim for 2 or 3 days a week) • Use images along with your post (they get more traction) • When taking your pictures, keep in mind that you will be posting it in

vertical alignment (pictures should be in a horizontal orientation) • All images should be sized to 403 pixels x 403 pixels before being

posted to Facebook • Do not post any pictures with faces of children whom we don’t have

photo releases for (shoot hands and back of heads are a good way to avoid this while still getting a picture of kids interacting with the exhibit)

• Do not anthropomorphize animals or post in an animal’s “voice” • If you want to comment on the CuriOdyssey page as yourself, you’ll

need to switch who you’re commenting as in the “edit” button • Vary posts between showcasing the animals, exhibits and promoting

any other CuriOdyssey initatives • A good way to start of posts is by asking a question that tries to inquire

about a subject like “Did you know?”• The reasoning behind this is because we want to promote the message

that CuriOdyssey is about learning and that people can learn interest-ing things about animals and science through our social media as well

• Be more interactive with users by asking them to guess the animal? or to caption funny pictures

• Post about when new animals arrive and when animals die, this will give people a stronger emotional bond to the brand by being honest about animal’s health status

Example post above showcases the cascade exhibit

Twitter • Try to limit to posting just once per day (unless

we’re using for Mobile Museum or another off-site event) but try to post a couple of times a week

• Please don’t exceed the 140 characters to which you’re limited

• To post a link on Twitter, please use Bitly (please note posting a link limits your characters to 117)

• https://bitly.com/; Login: CuriOdyssey; Password: Curious1

• It would be great to try out a new hashtag initiative #ScienceSpot with our science observations

• Please don’t post any faces of children for whom we don’t have photo releases (backs of heads OK)

• Please don’t anthropomorphize animals or post in an animal’s “voice”

• Try to post as many high quality photos with tweets as you can

• When posting about animals and exhibits start with questions or active words - “Did you know?” is a good starter

• Interact with other similar companies on Twitter more often (use Twitter as a networking tool to talk to other businesses

• Try to interact more with people who @CuriOdys-sey about their experiences (do this by looking up CuriOdyssey on Twitter, or using Tweetdeck)

• Experiment with the hashtag #learnmore to spark conversations about CuriOdyssey exhibits and ani-mals and also to get people on Twitter to associate CuriOdyssey with education and learning

• Pictures posted to Twitter must be saved in a 2 x 1 aspect ratio

Example post above showcases Cascades exhibit

Instagram• Advertise to CuriOdyssey customer’s to share

their experience on social media (specifically share pictures via instagram)

• If possible track people who @ or #curiodyssey and regram their pictures onto the CuriOdyssey page

• Post the most high quality and visually stunning and appealing photos you can take

• Post some animal and exhibit photos with short and educational captions at least once a week if you can

• Alternate between posting animal, exhibit and promotional CuriOdyssey event photos

• Experiment with using the #learnmore in the cap-tions to help Instagram users to associate with fun and educational

• Be more interactive with users by asking them to guess the animal? or to caption funny pictures

• Experiment with the video feature on Instagram to demonstrate exhibits or to advertise the wild-life weeeknd shows or to advertise the otter and bobcat feedings

Example post showcases the Great Horned Owl, Solo for Owl Awareness Day

Pinterest • Pinterest should mainly be used to communicate with the older female

audience• The Pinterest demographics consists mainly of women somewhere be-

tween 30-55 • Highly recommend to take advantage of this by posting more wedding

pictures to advertise CuriOdyssey as a potential wedding venue • Posting pictures of animals would also get traction from this audience • Pinterest is great for showing off things like infographs • Make Pinterest boards title’s seem more active and interesting

Example post above showcases a CuriOdyssey wedding

Social Media Promotional Posts • A great way to promote special CuriOdyssey visitor events is by

posting promotional posts on social media • These posts can also be a great way to create a relationship

with everyone who follow CuriOdyssey on social media • A great way to create anticipation for the event is by doing a

countdown with pictures and facts or information about the event on Facebook or Instagram

• It is also a great way to remind people about the event happen-ing

• Pair promotional posts with pictures to get more traction • Link to the website where they can learn more about • Be more interactive with users by asking them to guess the ani-

mal? or to caption funny pictures• Capitalize on posting something and tying it to a holiday or

special occasion

Example post above is a promotional post for CuriOdyssey’s Reptile Day

Social Media Tools • Nationbuider - is good for learning more about social media followers, tracking social media acitivity and helping build an on-

line campaign • Canva - is good to make really quick like Facebook/Twitter banners or promotional social media post; this tool is essentially

much easier photoshop without any of the photo editing options but it has really nice layouts, backgrounds, texts and pictures that would be able to create well designed photos for social media

• Pablo - qucik and easy way to put text over a nice background, this would be good to use for animal or exhibit facts to post onto social media

• Scoop It - is useful to help schedule social media posts and analyze social media metrics, also has the ability to make newletters quickly and a good resource to find news on animals, zoos, museums and science

• Buzzsumo - is good for discovering the most shared content across all social networks, find influencers in certain topic areas and content alerts to see content mentioning specific keywords

• Hashtagify - good for finding unique hashtags for social media campaigns • Little Bird - makes it easy to discover people who regularly engage with your brand or space, helps find out what is being

shared by these people, and analyze this data • Commun.it - helps manage Twitter by finding key infleuncers, is equipped with Twitter Analytics and is able to schedule tweets• Social Mention - is good for finding mention of CuriOdyssey on any social media platform • Talkwater - keeps you updated on all animal and science happenings

Guide to shooting Diego

The best way to shoot Diego, the Channel Island Fox is from inside the cave and to shoot him when he is sleeping on the tambark or when he is sleeping on the rock on the left side of his habitait (stand on the right most side of the enclosure to get a shot of him when he is up on the rocks). The best times to shoot Diego are either during the morning before CuriOdyssey opens or later in the afternoon between 2-4. Diego can usually be found sleeping in the small enclosure in the front, it is not recommended that you shoot him from here though because there is a lot of glare from the glass.

How to shoot the Golden Eagles and VulturesCuriOdyssey has two Golden Eagles named Ishta and Orso. I rec-ommend that you shoot the Golden Eagles with a bigger lens so that you can get close ups like the one on the left. I recommend you shoot on the side with the glass, since the fencing can get into the way of your photo even if you zoom in a lot. In my opinion the best time to shoot the Golden Eagle is in mid morning and the afternoon

There are three Turkey Vultures, two are on exhibit while the other one suffers from cataracts and is with the keepers. The best way to shoot the Turkey Vultures is to either ask Wildlife Director, Nikii if you can got to the back and shoot the one back there. The other way is to shoot the two on exhibit at around 9:30, when the keepers are cleaning their cages. If you ask them to they might let you in to shoot the birds, which is better because it is very hard to shoot outside the wire fence.

Guide to shooting Frankie & Caro

CuriOdyssey has two bobcats named Frankie (on the left) and Caro (on the right). I recommend you shoot them from the glass side as it is hard to get a good shot between the wires from the caged side. I really like shooting them on the rocks as you can see from the photo on the right, Caro likes to sit up by the rocks in the very upper right of his enclosure. He remains there for a while and having a camera will intrigue him enough for him to stare at you. However you can also take pictures of them on the tambark or in their little net hammock, although they are usually sleeping. The best time to shoot them is porbably mid-morning, after their feeding time which is 1 and late afternoon near closing somewhere between 3-5.

Guide to shooting the Raccoons

At CuriOdyssey there are currently 4 raccoons, two adults and two younger ones (younger one pictured in the bigger pic-tures and the two adults in the smaller pictures. The best way to shoot them is from inside the cave side, you can shoot them on the other side but I find that they don’t appear on that side that often. Usually the best places to shoot them are when they are on the ropes however watch out for the space on the far right, you can shoot them there but I find that the glare is much more prominent on that side. The younger ones might be harder to shoot because they tend to move around a lot quick-er than the older ones. The best time to shoot the raccoons seems to be in the afternoon specifically late in the afternoon like 3-5, however it is helpful to go and see if you can shoot them because they might be out and about during that time as well.

Tips on shooting the some of the birds in the aviary

This is one of the two roadrunners at CuriOdyssey, personally I don’t think ei-ther of the roadrunners are all that fast. Although one of them has one anputat-ed toe, so that might hinder his speed. However the roadrunners can excep-tionally hard to find in the aviary. When you do find them, it can be hard to get them still for a while, but once you do take as many photos as possible because you might be able to find them that well the next day. The best times to shoot the roadrunner are in the morning between 9-10:30 and in the afternoon around 1.

This is CuriOdyssey’s Great Blue Heron, John. The best way to shoot this magnifi-cent bird is in the sunlight of course. She tends to go over to stand on one of the rocks by the pond ocassionally during the afteroon. You can also get shots of the Great Blue Heron when she is in the shade in the morning, however you might want to wait till 10 or 11 for it to get brighter before you start shooting.

This is CuriOdyssey’s Black Crowed Night Heron. This bird is extremely hard to shoot most of the time because he is way up in the tree. However rarely in the morning he comes down and sits on one of the lower branches in the tree. You will most likely have to edit your photos still because it will still be quite dark. The Black Crowed Night Heron has only one eye so be mindful when shooting and try to get only his profile.

Tips on shooting the some of the birds in the aviary Guide to shooting Gunter & Bella

CuriOdyssey has two otters Gunther & Bella and it is extremely hard to shoot these two.Otters are extremely fast swimmers, so don’t count on getting a picture of these guys in the water. Although you can try shooting them in the small cave area, however I find that the glare is too strong usually to get a decent shot of these guys. Something else to be aware of is that the otters seem to have a sixth sense and know when you’re shooting and as you as you’re about to take your shot they move away. My advice for shooting the otter is to already have yourself set up and ready to shoot and to go to shoot by the glass closest toward the end of the cave exhibits. The otters will mostly likely be very attracted to your camera and come running out of the water and then I’d usggest just taking as many pictures as possbile with the quickest possible shuter. Some-times the keepers put a small black pool and fill it with water and place it in front of the glass. This is the most optimal time to shoot these guys, so take advantage whenever you see it and be as patient as possible.