Is your science communications plan about science communication...or is it really about dissemination?
Let's say you've just had a fabulous piece of research accepted for publication. Congratulations! When that paper is published, you're sharing your work and results with other scientists - and anyone else with journal access...and can understand the paper too of course. Those people may work in industry, government, or elsewhere.
Let's say you also present your work at that super-amazing science conference, and, because you see the merit of open science, you put your data on a publicly accessible database (with some nice metadata, of course) for other researchers to use.
All these activities fall under the umbrella of dissemination. It's all about putting the information in the hands of those who will use your work. In other words, it's (mostly) for specialists.
Now let's say you contact a science writer and tell them about your amazing study, then a story appears about your work in [insert fav news publication]. Or you've had a social media campaign chatting about your project, why it's important, and other cool things. Or you give a talk or host a workshop with a local nature group.
This is science communication. It's all about informing and engaging the wider society in your work and its wider significance. Crucially, it makes the research relevant and understandable to people who have zero scientific background. That's most people, by the way - including those all-important policymakers.
So, next time you're putting together your science communications plan, ask yourself...is it all dissemination?