@Involcan communication strategies on the 2021 Cumbre Vieja eruption: Of do´s, don´ts, trolls and other fantastic beasts

The 2021 Cumbre Vieja eruption has provided powerful insights not only on the pure research field, but as well on the communication side. From INVOLCAN we´ve developed a clear strategy on how to communicate what was going on, and about the role of science on this eruption. But there is as well a long road to let the different audiences understand the ultimate goal of an institutional profile, that is telling about science and nothing else related to the drama lived by the population. That strategy led us to show anything but science, discarding tons of footage of destruction of infrastructure and properties.

Through the eruption our Twitter and Facebook profiles published the same content, with a clear divergence on the output. While Facebook followers remained almost stagnant all over the 3 months period, the Twitter account skyrocketed to a +-5000% increase on followers, and almost 100M tweet impressions. We focused on working on a single profile rather than in personal profiles of researchers, where part of the message and the influence can be lost in time

All our graphic material was released as public domain, what resulted in hundreds of INVOLCAN TV hours, and led to hundreds of interviews on media from anywhere in the world. The impact of the INVOLCAN brand is literally unaccountable and we believe strengthens the Institute reputation all over.

But we have discovered some flaws as well on the “relationship” established between the “speaker” (INVOLCAN) and the “audience”. As massive attention was driven to the INVOLCAN account, the number of trolls and eccentric characters emerged. This is a well-known behaviour on social media, but never happened before to us on that scale.

A clear ignorance of the objectives of INVOLCAN may explain part of some feedback received, which perhaps did not understand well that INVOLCAN was not responsible for emergency tasks such as evacuations, or that it was not responsible for showing the destruction of private property or that at least it wasn't our job.

But there is still an important part of the work to be done, insofar as it is exhausting to see the proliferation of "experts" capable of demanding information that does not make any sense to the population or that directly accused of hiding information.

There is a long way to go in the world of social networks, and this eruption, the same as that of the COIVD-19 pandemic, has revealed the multiple menaces that threaten science lurking in the shadows, which may end up losing its voice in a tower of Babylon where anyone thinks they know the language of volcanoes