TCGA 2015 SymposiumTwitter Workshop for Scientists
Emma J. Spaulding, MPH@TCGAupdates
@emmajspaulding
Agenda
• Twitter Basics• 5 Reasons You Should Use Twitter• Twitter Terminology• Hits and Misses– From @TCGAupdates and Others
• Lessons Learned• Twitter Analytics
5 Reasons You Should Care
1. Connect with people in a very public way2. Patient’s perspectives3. Follow conferences from afar4. It’s fun!5. Advance your career
5. Advance Your Career
• 94 % of employers are using social media as part of their recruiting strategies
• Only 20 to 30 percent of jobs are filled by people applying for published vacancies. It’s who you know.
• The easiest way to connect with potential employers is through social media.
• You can form online relationships with people who could help you in the offline world.
• LinkedIn is still the most widely-used career management web site, but Twitter enables you to engage in conversations with people
5. Advance Your Career
An Introduction to Social Media for Scientists, April 23, 2013
c/o Mark Story, @mstory123
Your Searchable Public Profile
• Facebook vs Twitter• Expect potential employers and collaborators
to scan through your social media presence as part of the selection process
• “…Scientists should use social media to make them "much more likely to be approached by someone looking for an expert in a particular field.”
• @emmaspaulding and @emmajspauldingc/o Mark Story, @mstory123
5. Advance Your Career
Publishing • Using Twitter, you can:
• Create additional links to your work: point people to other sites where you have published information, like ResearchGate, Google Scholar, Academia.edu or a prominent blog
• Make your voice heard: share your opinion on scientific matters in a very visible fashion
• Highly tweeted journal articles are 11 times more likely to be highly cited compared with those with minimal or no social media presence (source: Journal of Medical Internet Research)
c/o Mark Story, @mstory123
Twitter Terminology
– Tweet: 140 character post– Tweet: Noun and verb
– Carolyn: Did you see that tweet saying what a great job Julia Zhang did organizing the conference?
– JC: Yes, I tweeted that during the morning break.
– Handle: your username (@TCGAupdates or @emmajspaulding)
– Followers: Other people on twitter who want to follow what you post
– Hashtag: Topic identifier (#TCGA or #TCGA15)– RT or MT: Tweeting another’s tweet with no or small changes– Favorite: Similar but more private
Twitter Terminology
– Feed: the constantly updated stream of tweets from people you follow
– URL shortener: makes a shorter version of a link so that it uses up fewer characters• Often automatic, Bit.ly
– Live-tweeting: Tweeting what’s happening from a conference
Best Practices
• Twitter as a cocktail party• Getting Started– Brevity• Additional Content• Photos
– NCI’s Visuals Online: https://visualsonline.cancer.gov – CDC's Public Health Image Library:
http://phil.cdc.gov/phil/home.asp– Flickr's "The Commons": https://www.flickr.com/commons– Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
c/o Mark Story, @mstory123
Best Practices
• Engage with your followers– Have you used @23andme? What did you think?– Ancestry.com’s genetic testing? Interesting? Worth
it?– Personalized medicine or precision medicine?
• Twitter or 3rd Party Apps– Tweetdeck and Hootsuite
• If you’re unsure, don’t.
Others’ Misses
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVHlCtX5Ucs (00:59)
Lessons Learned
• Check your hashtags• Use specific hashtags• A twitter misstep is not the end of the world
• http://www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags/
Accidental Tweets
• Not the end of the world• Private person, not official account• You monitor your account most closely• Can always delete
Terms and Definitions
• Twitter’s analytics website – analytics.twitter.com
• Impression – number of times a user saw our tweet
• Engagements – number of times users interacted with our tweet
• Engagement Rate - Engagements ÷ Impressions• Twitter’s Promoted Tweets – 3-5% Engagement Rate
What’s a good engagement rate?
• Twitter’s Promoted Tweets – 3-5% Engagement Rate
• Tweets from #AACR15