3 Tips For Sharing Your Eclipse Experience Online

Do you have your eclipse plans in place?

With the path of totality stretching from the West Coast to the East Coast, the upcoming celestial event is sometimes being billed as “The Great American Eclipse.” Also, since it’s the first widespread eclipse event across much of the United States since 1979, it will be the first within the Digital Age in which tons of media of the event will be shared.

With so many having access to technology that will allow them to share, this event will be one of the first that will have photos and video widely distributed online. While we encourage you to enjoy the eclipse in person with your own eyes as much as possible, sharing the experience online is also going to be one of the main points of conversation on Eclipse Day. With that in mind, we wanted to share our top three tips for sharing and keeping the experience digitally.

Hashtags

As with any widespread event, hashtags are key in making sure that you’re part of the conversation and are able to track it. Unfortunately, with so many different news outlets and science organizations covering the event, there appears to be no unified and agreed-upon hashtag. Using as many popular ones as possible will ensure that you’ll be part of the fun.

Popular ones tracking the conversation leading up to the event have included, #eclipse, #solareclipse, #americaneclipse and #eclipse2017. Using all of these hashtags in any post, as well as any others that crop up, are essential in making sure that you’re part of the conversation.

Include Friends & Family

Have you ever traveled to a recognizable landmark like the Golden Gate Bridge or Eiffel Tower? It’s usually irresistible to snap a photo and save for yourself or for social media. Those are great, but there are tons of postcards and other photography available of these landmarks.

The same will go for the eclipse. There will be tons of photography made available for all aspects of the eclipse already, so how do you make yours special?

One of the best ways to do this and personalize the experience is by making sure that your friends and family are included in photos or video of your eclipse experience. Perhaps it’s taking a photo of the kids when the shadow of the moon creates darkness in the daytime. Maybe it’s your spouse holding your hands up to the covered sun. The creative possibilities are endless, but making sure that your loved ones are in the photos or video will ensure it’s a memory that lasts a lifetime.

Use “Permanent” Tools

One other thing that we would stress is to not utilize “disappearing” services like Snapchat or Instagram Stories. A total solar eclipse is something that occurs very rarely, so it’s not something that you’d want to disappear after 24 hours.

The experience is something that you’ll want to last a lifetime, so you’ll want to ensure that you can always find the video file. Saving it to social media is one thing, but to ensure that it doesn’t get lost in a feed and forgotten, you might also consider saving it locally and backing the file up. It’s going to likely be a memory as priceless as vacation, birthday, or Christmas photos, so you’ll want to make sure you can return to it without hassle.

What are your plans for the eclipse? Will you be traveling to the path of totality, or enjoying a large percentage of it in your backyard? Be sure to comment back to us on social media and let us know how your experience goes!