Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders @cbulik UNC

Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Research

Workshop Map

• Who uses social media?

• What is engaged science?

• Social media for outreach and dissemination

• Social media for recruitment

• Recommendations

• Cautions

Who uses social media?

Social Media Facilitates Engaged Science

What is Engaged Science?

Effective engagement … requires academic members to become part of the community, and requires community members to become part of the research team... PMID 17244838 , 8851345

Community engagement supports mutual respect of values, strategies, and actions.

http://www.iap2.org/

ENGAGING Whom?

Individuals Affected by Psychiatric Disorders Patients Families Partners Carers Clinicians

Funders

Scientists from Diverse Disciplines

Advocates Policy Makers

Take Your Internet and Social Media Presence

SERIOUSLY

People love faces

It’s OK to brag a little

Tell them what you are all about

It’s OK to ask for money

Link everything

Brand Yourself

Brand Your Studies

Social Media for Dissemination & Outreach

Social Media for Dissemination

Journal of Medical Internet Research

Articles that many people tweeted about were 11 times more likely to be highly cited than those who few people tweeted about

What is “TWIMPACT”

• TWitter IMpact

• Tweets predict citations within 3 days of publication

• Early signal of success/impact

• Accelerate citations

Reasons for Tweeting

• Great article!

• Controversial (soliciting comments)

• Mentorship/sponsorship

• Open access principles

• Study recruitment (more later)

• Narcissism and/or (un)diplomacy

Social Media for Participant Recruitment

WH

AT

IS

SO

CIA

L

ME

DIA

?

Twitter’s strength is making connections

Ideal for participant recruitment

229,098 Your Re-Tweets Matter!

Work WITH advocates!

Who has a voice in your field?

Controls Cases SocialMedia/InternetTV & Radio

Print Media

Family

Where U.S. Participants Heard About ANGI

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

CEED (mean)

Community(mean)

Pe

rce

nt

Me

an

Severity: Clinic vs. Community

Social Media Get the Attention of Earned Media

@HelixAN25

>4,000,000 listeners

>1,500,000 viewers

Social Media is Great for Staying in Touch

WH

AT

IS

SO

CIA

L

ME

DIA

?

Facebook’s strength is maintaining connections

Ideal for longevity

WH

AT

IS

SO

CIA

L

ME

DIA

?

Blogging translates science for the public

Recommendations

Recommendations

Include links and links with images

Recommendations

Practice writing clickbait https://chenhaot.com/retweetedmore/

92% chance

Recommendations

It’s OK to solicit re-tweets!

• “(Pls RT!)” • “@ddlovato Pls RT! Why do some people

develop anorexia? Scientists now know WHICH genes increase risk for this life-threatening disorder.”

@ddlovato .@ddlovato

Only people who follow both ME and Demi Lovato will see

Everyone who follows me will see

Recommendations

Practice Twittequette!

• Retweet unto others as you would have them retweet unto you!

• Thank new followers (you can automate this)

• Thank people for shout outs

Recommendations

### Hashtags to get your posts seen

• Use a service like Symplur http://www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags/

The best time to tweet is between 13:00 and 15:00 in

your time zone. Tweets between 9:00-15:00 are

preferable. It’s important to repeat tweets that you’ve

sent out before in order to hit a new market/ time zone.

No one will complain about repeat tweets.

Recommendations

Use a service like Hootsuite or TweetDeck to schedule

tweets—like a Twitter cockpit

Recommendations

Everyone I follow Notifications & new followers

Direct (private) tweets

Full feed of specific people

Tweet regularly

Twitter is unforgiving

Recommendations

Think before you tweet

Step BACK FROM THE KEYBOAD!

Recommendations

Cautions

• Never EVER tweet about patients!

• No identifying information AT ALL

• Develop a personal troll policy

• Know a journal’s social media policy

• Keep professional/personal accounts

• Don’t let social media take over your life

Invitation

@cbulik

Read our blog:

http://uncexchanges.wordpress.com

And visit my website:

www.cynthiabulik.com

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