blogging, tweeting, sharing your work to reach policy makers

Blogging, tweeting, sharing your work to reach policy makers

UCL Early Careers Network 22 April 2015

Dr Trish GrovesHead of research, The BMJ& Editor-in-chief, BMJ Open

Applications that build on ideological & technological foundations of Web 2.0 & allow creation & exchange of user-generated content (Alqvist T et al, 2008)

Interactions in which people create, share, & exchange information & ideas in virtual communities & networks (Kaplan AM, Haenlein M, 2010)

Information tools that both exploit & celebrate our social nature (Coiera E, BMJ 2013)

So what are social media?

@bmj_latest/twitter 170k followers

https://www.facebook.com/thebmjdotcom 38,880 likes

http://doc2doc.bmj.com/

How to be social

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/Twitter Guide Sept 2011Free to use and share

• setting up your Twitter account• useful Twitter terminology• tweeting styles• building up your followers• resources• using Twitter:• for research projects• in departments• alongside blogging• in teaching

Tips for academics

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/files/2011/11/Published-Twitter_Guide_Sept_2011.pdf

Anatomy of a tweet

blog

journal

An author’s tweet

• tweet links to articles, blogs, web pages• use # to link tweets and make them searchable• use Twitter buttons on web pages and browser headers• save some of 140 characters for comments when retweeted• live tweet conferences and other open meetings:• conference #• tweet speaker biographies/web pages/blogs/papers• use tweetreach to see how far tweets about a # have spread• use Storify to curate tweets

Tweetastic tips

https://youtu.be/Rwzhg-FqPXg

http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj-journals-development-blog/2014/04/14/what-does-social-media-add-to-conferences/

Social media and impact of research

http://melissaterras.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/what-happens-when-you-tweet-open-access.html Prof M Terras, UCL

Eysenbach G. Can Tweets Predict Citations? Metrics of Social Impact Based on Twitter and Correlation with Traditional Metrics of Scientific Impact. J Med Internet Res 2011;13(4):e123DOI: 10.2196/jmir.2012

Top-cited articles can be predicted from top-tweeted articles with 93% specificity and 75% sensitivity.

Tweets can predict highly cited articles within the first 3 days of article publication.

Social media activity either increases citations or reflects the underlying qualities of the article that also predict citations, but the true use of these metrics is to measure the distinct concept of social impact. Social impact measures based on tweets are proposed to complement traditional citation metrics.

Haufstein S et al. Tweeting biomedicine: An analysis of tweets and citations in the biomedical literature. Journal of the Association for Information Science and TechnologyVolume 65, Issue 4, pages 656–669, April 2014 DOI: 10.1002/asi.23101

Analysis based on 1.4 million documents covered by both PubMed and Web of Science between 2010 and 2012.

The number of tweets containing links to these documents compared to citations to evaluate degree to which certain journals, disciplines, and specialties were represented on Twitter and how far tweets correlate with citation impact.

With less than 10% of PubMed articles mentioned on Twitter, its uptake is low in general but differs between journals and specialties. Correlations between tweets and citations are low, implying that impact metrics based on tweets are different from those based on citations.

Grande D et al. Translating Research For Health Policy: Researchers’ Perceptions And Use Of Social Media. Health Affairs July 2014 doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0300

Survey of 325 health policy researchers registered for 2013 Academy Health Annual Research Meeting.About using social media v traditional media + direct outreach to disseminate research findings to policy makers.

Researchers rated social media lowest in three domains: researchers’ confidence in their ability to use the method, peers’ respect for its use, and how it is perceived in academic promotion. Just 14% reported tweeting, and 21% reported blogging about their research or related health policy in the past year. Researchers described social media as being incompatible with research, of high risk professionally, of uncertain efficacy, and an unfamiliar technology that they did not know how to use.

Tweeting as a doctor: be careful

General Medical Council social media policy covers:

• blogs and microblogs (Twitter)• internet forums (doctors.net, Doc2Doc)• content communities (Youtube, Flickr)• social networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn)

GMC: Good Medical Practice 2013

http://www.gmc-uk.org/Doctors__use_of_social_media.pdf_51448306.pdf

Key points in GMC guidance on doctors’ use of social media

Date of download: 6/3/2013

Copyright © The American College of Physicians. All rights reserved.

From: Online Medical Professionalism: Patient and Public Relationships: Policy Statement From the American College of Physicians and the Federation of State Medical Boards

Ann Intern Med. 2013;158(8):620-627. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-158-8-201304160-00100

Thanks

@trished

tgroves@bmj.com

pinterest.com/trishedpin