Enabling Community through Social Media

Enabling Community through Social Media

Anatoliy Gruzd

Associate Professor, Director of Social Media Lab

Ryerson University

Vancouver, BCOct 24, 2015

Health Care Social Media Canada #hcsmcaTwitter Community

Gruzd, A. & Haythornthwaite, C. (2013). Enabling Community through Social Media.

Journal of Medical Internet Research 15(10):e248.

doi: 10.2196/jmir.2796. PubMed PMID: 24176835.

2Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd

http://www.jmir.org/2013/10/e248/

Background

• #hcsmca is a vibrant community of people interested in exploring social innovation in health care. We share and learn, and together we are making health care more open and connected

• #hcsmca hosts a tweet chat every Wednesday at 1 pm ET. The last Wednesday of the month is our monthly evening chat at 9 pm ET.

Source: http://cyhealthcommunications.wordpress.com/hcsmca-2/


http://cyhealthcommunications.wordpress.com/hcsmca-2/

Research questions1. What accounts for the relative longevity of this particular

online community? • Is it because of the founder’s leadership and her continuing

involvement in this community?

• Or is there a core group of members who are also actively and persistently involved in this community?

2. What is the composition of this community? Does one’s professional role/title determine a person’s centrality within this community.


Step 1: Data CollectionData: Public Twitter messages that mentioned the #hcsmca

hashtag/keyword

Collection Period: November 12 – December 13, 2012

Software: Netlytic http://netlytic.org


http://netlytic.org/

Topics Covered (1)

Nov 14, 2012 T1: Challenge of engaging SM to inform a research agenda

T2: Use of innovation, SM, and gamification to encourage uptake of self-care


Topics Covered (2)Nov 21, 2012 T1 Healthcare blogs should we or shouldn’t we, what have we learned, what

are the benefits?

T2 Are healthcare blogs a useful tool for education and knowledge transfer?


Topics Covered (3)Nov 28 2012 T1: How has social media made you healthier? Unhealthier? Has social

media made our health choices more numerous and this overwhelming?

T2: What messaging would motivate you to make a positive health change?

Who would you listen to?


Making Sense of Social Media Data

9

Social Media Data -> Visualizations -> Understanding

Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd



Making Sense of Social Media Data

Social Media Data -> Visualizations -> Understanding

Nodes = People

Edges /Ties (lines) = Relations/ “Who talks to whom”

Social Network Analysis (SNA)

Automated Discovery of Online Social Networks

Example: Tweets@John

@Peter

@Paul

Nodes = People

Ties = “Who retweeted/ replied/mentioned whom”

Tie strength = The number of retweets, replies or

mentions


Network visualization in Netlytic:

http://netlytic.org/gephi/sigma.php?c=0ZnbSm6D23u07bT0&viz=2


#hcsmca Communication Network on Twitter

(Nov 12 - Dec 13)

http://netlytic.org/gephi/sigma.php?c=0ZnbSm6D23u07bT0&viz=2


(Nov 12 - Dec 13)

*Roles are assigned manually

Roles Count

SM health content

providers 110

Unaffiliated individual users 89

Communicators - not

specifically health related 74

Communicators - Health

related 59

Healthcare professionals 50

Health institutions 31

Advocacy 30

Students 16

Educators, professors 13

Researchers 10

Government and health

policy makers 4

Node size = In-Degree Centrality


• Nodes are automatically grouped

based on their roles

• No apparent clustering among

people in the same role (notice

cross-group ties)

Procedure: Analysis of Variance Density Test using UCINET



(Nov 12 - Dec 13)

Conclusions• Leaders and core participants can seed a network by altruistic or proactive use that,

initially, provides more benefit to others than they receive in return.

• However, for long-term sustainability that persists beyond leadership change, the network needs to grow in a way that distributes leadership and participation beyond single leaders.

• More prominent actors are engaged in multiple networks relating to health matters. As these actors also bridge networks, they are able to carry the message of the network to others.

• Peripheral participants represent untapped resources for the network. Finding out what motivates such participants can help identify those who will make contributions in the future and thus how to bring their participation into the community.