Twitter for Health Communication

Twitter can be an extremely valuable tool for healthcare professionals who want to use social media professionally. Twitter may seem daunting to novice users, but it is actually a simple tool that allows you to stay updated on researching the most current topics in your field of medical expertise. The character limit has been increased to 280 characters (compared to the past 140), which means it is easier to create a well-structured tweet.

What is a hashtag?

A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by a pound sign (#) and is used to identify messages on a specific topic. Hashtags are very useful to allow you to follow the thread of conversation on specific topics , for example a type of disease. They can also be very useful during medical conferences to involve Twitter users in the debate about what they have learned and about their conference experience in general.

What hashtags are affected by healthcare professionals?

Symplur , a social media analytics provider, has created a cardiology ontology that provides a list of hashtags used around the world to communicate on various topics.

The hashtags of particular interest to interventional cardiologists are among others:

·        #STEMI ST elevation MI

·        #NSTEMI Non-ST elevation MI

·        #cvVHD Valvular heart disease

·        #RadialFirstRadial

·        # Stroke Stroke

·        #TAVI Transcutaneous aortic valve implantation

·        #TAVR Replacing the #TAVR transcutaneous aortic valve

·        #Heartfailure Heart failure

·        #CardioOnc Cardio-oncology

·        #cvACS Acute coronary syndrome

·        #cvCABG Bypass graft with coronary artery

·        #cvCHF Congestive heart failure

·        #AFib Atrial fibrillation

·        #LVAD Left ventricular assist device

·        #MitraClip MitraClip

Other hashtags often used by cardiologists are: #CardioTwitter, #CardioEd, #Twitterati

The anatomy of a tweet

A typical tweet can contain several elements. It may be a simple sentence, but to increase engagement, it's a good idea to include a hashtag, link, image and mention . To find someone's Twitter handle, search for the person's or organization's name on the web and add Twitter to the search phrase, for example: "PCRonline Twitter":

Practical tips to increase visibility on Twitter:

·        Asking people to retweet (RT);

·        Tweets with images get double the retweets of those without images ;

·        + 18% more engagement for accounts that respond than those that don't;

·        Shorter tweets get more engagement than long ones (up to 280 characters);

·        Hyperlinks receive more retweets than unlinked tweets;

·        Always use the most appropriate hashtags to increase audience engagement.

·        Consult to Medical Web Marketing professionals