If you’ve been busy watching the Olympics news on Twitter, you might have ran across another trending tweet stream @MarsCuriosity has been trending over the weekend as the Mars Lander “tweeted” the details of its last few days in space preparing to land on Mars.
The Curiosity Mars Lander successfully touched down at approximately 12:14am central time Monday morning. At 12:32am central time, the lander tweeted its safe landing to over 600,000 followers. 
Curiosity also has around 147,000 Facebook Fans cheering on its mission on Mars. That’s a pretty impressive online fan base for a robot that’s millions of miles away. Do you think @AstroRobonaut is wondering how @MarsCuriosity managed to more followers than he did?
I’m known at Schipul as the resident “Space Geek” but all of us were excited to hear about the safe landing, and we want to share our excitement for NASA’s incredible work with this Mars Lander mission.
Two Extraordinary Accomplishments for NASA!
Smooth Landing for MarsCuriosity
Landing a robot on Mars is no easy task and comes with the added challenge of a 14 minute communication delay. And NASA made it look so easy this morning when Curiosity Mars Lander touched down on the red planet’s soil. Curiosity is the first Mars lander since the Phoenix mission in 2008.
Curiosity is carrying some pretty advanced equipment to assist it with the mission objectives that include 17 cameras, an infrared lazer to vaporize small rocks, and x-ray vision plus many other advanced scientific equipment.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be getting more images and analysis of the Martian Landscape courtesy of Curiosity. The mission objectives for Curiosity include:
- Try to determine if there was ever life on Mars
- Study the Martian climate and geology of Mars
- Bring back data to help with planning a human mission to mars.
Watch the Mars Lander Curiosity Landing on NASA Television’s YouTube:
Social Media in Space
In addition to successfully sending this Super Robot to Mars, NASA should be commended for its successful use of social media marketing to help revitalized the organization’s PR and community awareness. In addition to MarsCuriosity’s astounding number of followers and fans, @NASA has over 2.5 million fans, has had its YouTube videos watched over 33 million times, and has photographs that you can’t find anyplace on Earth on the official NASA photographer Flickr.
NASA has used social media to grow a huge following of space enthusiasts and has integrated social media throughout their website and other media outlets. If you head over to NASA’s Social Media Connect Page you’ll find hundreds of accounts for various projects and NASA employees across a dozen different social platforms including Google, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, and more.
If you’re struggle with managing your organization’s social media marketing and staying on top of what’s being said about you and by whom on the internet, you might take a cue from what the digital media team at NASA is doing because they are doing it right.
Learn More about NASA and Social Media
NASA at the Houston Social Media Breakfast Club August 31st, 2012
Learn how NASA turned reluctant employees into social media stars to enable NASA to expand its digital marketing efforts on August 31st at the Houston Social Media Breakfast Club.
Amiko Kauderer, NASA’s Social Media Lead and Web Manager at the Johnson Space Center, will share her strategy to engage employees to become active social media users to build your brand, balance employee participation with management concerns, and more… (we’re hoping she might tell us who is behind @MarsCuriosity’s twitter persona). Amiko has over 14 years of experience in digital marketing and communications, and among her many responsibilities at NASA, she manages multiple NASA social media accounts, including the @NASA_Johnson twitter account and teaches the astronauts how to tweet.
RSVP for the Social Media Breakfast Club’s August 31st event online at: https://www.facebook.com/events/399530253444671/
NASA Johnson Space Center Hosts Ragan Conference
Mars Shadows
Mars Lander Curiosity took several images upon landing and my favorite is the one with the lander’s shadow in the image:
Good luck, Curiosity! We are excited to see what you’ll send us next.