Hello, internet: Meeting thousands of people on the high seas via Reddit

Reddit had 244 million unique visitors in January 2018 and was the 4th-most-used social media platform behind Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Despite its popularity and usage, Reddit is rarely included in scientific outreach and science communication training. In June 2017, we conducted a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) during a deep-sea research expedition. The AMA had over 78,000 unique viewers, more than four times the number of people who viewed all our other social media activity during the 2-week cruise. We will discuss our AMA preparations and management and lessons learned from using a Reddit AMA for education and outreach.