Speaker
Description
NSF COLDEX rapidly grew its following on Instagram after 1) investing in a 50% digital communications coordinator and 2) deploying that person with our 2025-26 Antarctic ice core field team to tell stories of COLDEX sample collection and the United States Antarctic Program. Through posts on their personal and the NSF COLDEX organizational Instagram accounts, Martin Froger Silva generated extraordinary growth in the audience reached on that platform: from several hundred followers in fall 2025 to more than 20,000 followers in 2026. Through digital stories told with engaging visuals, viral Instagram posts (some with >10,000,000 views) led to growth on the platform and storytelling opportunities with other forms of media (radio, print, television).