We are @social_meded on Twitter. http://twitter.com/social_meded
What is a Twitter?
Twitter is a microblogging service, that serves as a way to broadcast and receive short messages that are 140 characters or less, to and from a community of people. It is the fastest growing social media site, although it has a low retention rate (40%). Tweets are indexed by the Library of Congress and a public record of information that is searchable on Google. According to a recent Aug 2009 study, tweets can be categorized as pointless babble, conversational, self promotional, news, spam, and those with pass-along value. Due to the large volume of ‘pointless babble’ (40%), It’s important to understand how to sift through all this information to obtain the interaction that will help you. This can be done through several tricks to strategize how you will follow and identify useful tweets.
Some popular myths and tips about Twitter for doctors and trainees here
http://futuredocsblog.com/top-Twitter-myths-tips/
Twitter Vocabulary
Tweet - A 140 character (includes spaces) message
Retweet (aka RT) – rebroadcast of something someone else tweeted
Hashtag (aka #, #tag, #hashtag) – a way to index a tweet into theme or topic of tweets #socialmedia #meded
Twitter list – a user-generated list of tweeple who usually relate to a specific topic
Followers – Those that are subscribing to your Twitter feed
Direct Message (aka D, d, DM, dm) – a way to send private messages to your followers (like e-mail)
Favorite – To indicate that you like a tweet, also saves it into your favorites
URL shorteners – to reduce the length of a URL http://www.tinyurl.com
Twitter Interface Programs
There are many Twitter Interface Programs. In fact, less than half of tweets are sent through the Twitter website, with the majority coming from one of these programs. One of the reasons is the ease of sending tweets via smartphones such as the Apple iPhone or Blackberry.
- Twitter.com – Twitter website
- Tweetdeck – a mega-Twitter program that allows you to scan multiple tweets at once; has a built in url shortener
- Twitterberry – Twitter for Blackberry
- Twitterific – especially helpful on iPhone
- Flipboard (for iPad) – turns Twitter into a magazine that you can literally flip through; also possible to tweet, retweet and favorite
Other Twitter Programs
- Twitter Karma – A program that allows you to ‘clean’ up who you follow by figuring out who you
- WeFollow – Twitter Index of people to follow; a way to index yourself in the categories you tweet under
Resources
Twitter Lists (Mashable, 2009) http://mashable.com/2009/11/02/twitter-lists-guide/
Popular Hashtags
Using Twitter, try searching any of these hashtags to see what people are talking about today.
Medical topics:
#hcsm (health care and social media)
#meded (medical education)
#SoMeCME (social media continuing medical education)
#mdchat (medical doctors chat)
#hcmktg (health care marketing)
#healthcare
#medschool
#aamc10 (AAMC Annual Meeting 2010)
Weekly tags:
#ff, #FF (follow Friday = suggestions of people to follow)
NOTICE: Links above are listed as examples of many Twitter tools available. This is by no means a comprehensive list nor is it an endorsement of any one tool or group of tools. Workshop facilitators are not responsible for content on those websites or functions or malfunctions of the tools, software or applications.