TL III on Slide-Share: 78 resources; 8,513 view and 139 Slide-share actions

TL III on Twitter: 259 followers with 87,100 impression (number of times information is seen on Twitter) since December, 2015

TL III on Facebook: 548 followers

Reach to 741,362 people on Facebook since December,

2015

TL III on Flickr: 389 photographs

Abstract

Reach of TL III on Social Media

Acknowledgement

TL III’s presence on social media

platforms over 1st year have shown

overall reach to more than 836,975

people virtually. These platforms

have also facilitated in knowledge

sharing and dissemination about the

project development and outcomes

and sensitize the global audience

about the available technologies

under TL III project that can

contribute directly/in-directly in

improving the livelihoods of

smallholder farmers.

Harnessing the power of social media to reach the unreached:

knowledge dissemination for greater impact of tropical

Legumes Nilesh Mishra1*, Emmanuel S Monyo2, Chris O Ojiewo3, Rajeev K Varshney1 1International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad, India 2International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Nairobi, Kenya 3International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia *Address for correspondence: m.nilesh@cgiar.org

Tropical Legumes III (a project supported by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, led by ICRISAT and jointly implemented by CIAT, IITA

and NARS partners) has developed several technologies including best bet varieties (>163) and other pool of resources over 3 phases

(2007-2016) of its implementation. However, it faces the challenge of reaching the intended target population at scale, putting our mission of

availing International Public Goods (IPG’s) in jeopardy. ICRISAT being majorly funded by public money is a firm supporter of global open

access and considers technologies, research results and data generated from different projects as IPGs to be shared with the global

scientific community using different open source platforms and tools. Social media platforms have the potential to address some of these

challenges and so TL III marked its presence on 4 social media platforms: Facebook (548 followers), Twitter (264 followers), Slide-share

(8,515 views), and Flickr (396 photos) and regularly uses them as a vehicle for information dissemination and reach interested stakeholders.

Technologies and varieties developed under TL III has been eye opener for many in the agriculture sector and smallholder farming in

particular. Over the period of 1 year of the project’s phase III implementation these 4 social media platforms have shown different level of engagements, information dissemination and reach that are highlighted below.

SlideShare is a Web 2.0–based slide/documents

hosting service. TL III uses SlideShare to upload

different resources (presentations, documents,

articles success stories etc) generated across TL

III project. Following file formats can be

uploaded: PowerPoint, PDF, Keynote or

OpenDocument presentations. Slide decks can

then be viewed on the site itself, on hand held

devices or embedded on other sites. The most

viewed articles on TL III SlideShare account is

“Success of Chickpea Production in North Gondar Zone of Ethiopia”.

Out of current followers of 259 Tweets earned 22,700 impressions between 1, Sep- 30 Nov 2016 Tweets earned 4,500 impressions in the last 28 days

During this 28 day period, TL III earned 157 impressions/day During this 28 day period, TL III earned 249 impressions/day