#MedTwitter and How to Use It

💻 Delivered Virtually

📅May 25, 2021

Presenters:
Heather Angus-Lee
Kanjana (Sashi) Perera

Objectives:
By the end of this session,  participants will be able to join Twitter, or extend their use of it, with more confidence and time saving skill!

Context:
Word of mouth is harder now that mouths are covered. Breaking news is harder now that we aren’t breaking bread together. #Medtwitter is popular – but also very crowded! – and leaned on more than ever because of the pandemic’s barriers to collaboration.

So,  how to best share research on the social media favoured by your field?

Can you join Twitter this late in the game and still make an impact?

Two women at the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) show you how to Tweet research in an efficient, meaningful way. One is a clinician-scientist, the other a communications specialist; one is a relative newbie to social media; the other a seasoned user.

Our Development Idea:
Extend one’s impact on Twitter impact in the following ways:

• Regular Twitter chats / # follows featuring PHRI/Mac researchers on key topics

• Tweetorials (aka Twitter threads) – more of them, on every paper tweeted ideally

• Leverage an organizational Twitter account to reach more eyeballs, vs having to start a personal account with no followers!

Problems We Have Insights On:

• Why a researcher held back from Twitter until 2019, and what she hopes to get out of it.

• How @PHRIresearch gained thousands of followers in its first year on Twitter, and has an ongoing high engagement of its content - with much less time spent than you think!

• How to differentiate yourself in the crowded space of #Medtwitter #Cardiotwitter #Epitwitter #EPeeps, etc.

• How to avoid self-aggrandisement (or at least the perception of it!)

• What goes into an optimal profile on Twitter

• What’s the message you’re sending with certain types of graphics

• What to do when you feel strongly about an issue personally, but represent an organization

• Privacy settings and blocks: how transparent and open do you need/should you be

• How can you tag all your collaborators, orgs and funders in one tweet

• What if you don’t want to have a Twitter account – how can you best share your research then?