NASA’s social media presence, which has grown from a few accounts more than a decade ago to dozens of channels with millions of followers, was honored with a pair of Webbys and People’s Voice awards as part of the 2019 Webby Awards.

“Social media has become NASA’s primary way of connecting with the public,” said Bettina Inclán, NASA’s associate administrator for Communications. “It lets us reach out directly to people and share the excitement of exploration across all of NASA’s programs. More importantly, it fosters conversation and builds shared goals, which will be essential as the agency drives forward to return astronauts to the Moon by 2024.”

There may be no better example of that connection than NASA’s Mars InSight mission, which won a social media People’s Voice Award for Education & Discovery. After landing on Mars in November 2018, the mission generated more than one million social media posts from members of the public. The hashtag #InSight even trended higher than #cybermonday on the Monday after Thanksgiving, known as Cyber Monday.

Two other agency digital properties received the People’s Voice award in their categories: NASA.gov, the agency’s primary website, won its 11th People’s Voice award in Government & Civil Innovation; and the Solar System Exploration site won its third People’s Voice award in the Science category.

NASA’s Climate Change website was also nominated in the Green category, and the video “The Call of Science” was nominated in the 360-degree Video category.

For more information about the Webby Awards, visit http://www.webbyawards.com.