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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