## 3 Media-Based Communication Strategies
### Social Media
As such, organizations may assign one or more individuals to respond to user posts and to provide up-to-date information. This can be time-consuming, but maximizes opportunities for productive dialogue [90]. WOM Case Study  
While the WOM uses several social media platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, the majority of project communication and outreach takes place via Facebook. This platform has the largest reach in Cambodia, with 8.8 million accounts reported among a national population of 16.48 million people in 2019 [29]. With the help of paid advertising and the regular posting of new content, WOM Facebook page followers have grown to over 155,000 people as of June 2021. Of these followers, 80% are in Cambodia, 9% are in Vietnam, 5% are in Thailand, and 2% are in Laos. Facebook serves as a platform for disseminating a variety of media products developed by the project, including photos, videos, original stories, infographics, and cartoons (Table 4). The Facebook page functions as a de facto project website and is the most regularly updated source of information about the project. Between February 2017 and February 2021, WOM shared 568 posts on Facebook. Collectively, these posts had a reach of 3.2 million (including an unpaid reach of 2.3 million), and generated 150,854 engagements (likes, shares, or comments). Types of stories posted to the WOM Facebook include updates of project activities or events, summaries of key findings or recent research, profiles of project team members, profiles of unique fish and wildlife species, and original stories reported by the project. Stories also draw attention to the impacts of human actions on the health of the aquatic environment, such as the harms of illegal destructive fishing, flooded forest clearing, plastic pollution, and discarded fishing gear. Some of the posts were promoted with paid Facebook advertising to increase their reach. To account for this in assessing the project's most engaging stories, posts were ranked based on their organic, or nonpaid reach. The most popular post was a series of photos and a short story about fishers in the Tonle Sap River catching more plastic than fish in their nets, which reached over 348,000 people--nearly three times more than the next most popular post (Table 4). The viral nature of this story reflected the surprise and concern of Cambodians reacting to the magnitude of plastic pollution in the Tonle Sap River. While terrestrial trash is more visible in Cambodia,comments reflected that people were unaware about the extent of the trash in the Tonle Sap River, which is the main source of fish caught for food in the country. Concerns about contamination of their food source prompted people to share the post and make complaints to people or organizations in charge of Phnom Penh's waste management. The story was also shared by several news outlets and conservation organizations, which helped increase its viral reach. Popular posts included both positive stories, such as the release of endangered juvenile fish from captive rearing ponds, as well as negative stories about the threats of trash, deforestation, and the poaching of waterbirds (Table 4). Several stories had explicit conservation messages, such as a popular cartoon communicating the harms of illegal electrofishing practices (Figure 5, Table 4). Technical profiles about various fish species that included identifying characteristics and notes on biology, habitats, and threats were well received, reflecting an interest among Cambodians in learning about their local aquatic biodiversity. The most popular of these was a post about the tinfoil barb (_Barbonymus schuunenfeldii_), a relatively common Mekong fish that is popular with aquarists, which had an organic reach of 12,952, and 2112 engagements. Longer content was sometimes split into multiple posts in a series. For instance, a series of infographics was shared about the life cycle of the giant barb (Figure 5).