What is Twitter?
Twitter is an online, interactive conversation facilitated through a service that uses “tweets” – short comments, statements or announcements that use 140 characters or less. Twitter defines itself as “a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting. Simply find the accounts you find most compelling and follow the conversations”.
Community is the key to making this communication work, and although it may sound challenging, exchanges can happen seamlessly and interactively within healthcare’s many active Twitter communities.
Getting Involved
Once you have your account, bio and profile picture loaded onto Twitter, one of the best ways to get involved in conversations is to participate in “tweet chats” – organized, interactive and streaming social events that have many participants.
Tweet chat discussions are led by industry experts on various topics. Participants in these virtual conversations have the option of participating directly in the discussion or simply “lurking” and learning. Much like meetings in the physical world, tweet chats are organized in advance for a certain day and time. Participants may join these virtual discussions by following a pre-determined hashtag, and there are often moderators to keep discussions on track.
How to Participate in a Tweet Chat
Here are some suggestions on how to engage in a tweet chat.
1. Tell your followers that you’ll be participating in a Tweet Chats and that you’ll be tweeting frequently.
2. Log into your twitter account.
3. Find the chat by searching Twitter for the pre-determined hashtag identifier.
4. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the discussion, including theme, other participants and any discussion that’s already occurred.
5. Feel free to re-tweet other users’ posts support statements from other tweeters and share them with your own networks.
6. Don’t forget to use the hashtag in any responses, comments or questions pertaining to the discussion so that everyone can be in on the conversation. Hashtagging everything clogs up the feed and can be frustrating for other participants.
7. Keep all questions and comments on-topic, and only use the hashtags for messages that are pertinent to the conversation.
8. Don’t use tweet chats for marketing purposes – either for your product or yourself.
9. It can be difficult to follow the conversation thread for active discussions. Apps such as Twitterfall, HootSuite, and TweetDeck can help you sort conversations by hashtags and clear the stream of comments.
10. There is another app called Tweet Chat. After you sync your Twitter account with it, just enter the hashtag once at the top and the conversation begins to appear. With Tweet Chat, you just have to enter the hashtag once, and it automatically adds it to your tweets from there.
Hashtags in Healthcare
In addition to following individuals, you also have the opportunity to follow ideas or topics. “Hashtags” are used in Twitter to identify and track topics that are tailored to your interests. They appear as “#,” followed immediately by a specific key phrase (e.g. “#hcsm” for healthcare communications & social media). There are some popular healthcare and healthcare social media hashtags that can provide a wealth of information on your particular area of interest.
Here are several of the key healthcare Twitter conversations that take place:
#hcsm Healthcare Communications & Social Media. Facilitators: @HealthSocMed and @danamlewis
#hcsmca Health Care Social Media Canada. Facilitator: @Colleen_Young
#HITsm Health Information Technology & Social Media. Facilitators: @HealthStandards and @OchoTex
#HCLDR Health Care Leadership. Facilitators: @colin_hung and @practicalwisdom
#HEJC Health Economics Journal Club. Facilitator: @aheblog
#BCSM Breast Cancer Social Media. Facilitators: @jodyms and @stales
#GratefulMedChat Grateful Med Chat. Facilitators: @drseisenberg, @kennyengels and @unha_engels
#hpmglobal Hospice and Palliative Medicine Global. Facilitator: @jfclearywisc
#DPTStudent Doctor of Physical Therapy Student. Facilitators: @mattdebole and @LaurenrSPT
#solvePT Solve Physical Therapy. Facilitator: @SnippetPhysTher
#eldercarechat Elder Care Chat. Facilitators: @caregiving and @Seniors4Living
#AlzChat Alzheimer Chat. Facilitator: @AlzChat
#CoRDSchat Coordination of Rare Diseases Chat. Facilitator: @SanfordCoRDS
#medlibs Medical Librarians. Facilitator: @eagledawg
#gbdoc Great Britain’s Diabetes Online Community. Facilitator: @thegbdoc
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