James Wolff, MD, MPH, MATAlejandra Barrero-Castillero MD, MPH

Using TwitterHarnessing the Power of Social Media for Professional Development

What we are going to cover….

Our Twitter Experiment Some Twitter History Twitter Basics Twitter Analytics Benefits and Limitations of Twitter Conclusions

Our Course and Students

• “Planning and Managing Maternal and Child Health Programs in Low-Resource Countries”

• Department of International Health at BUSPH

• Mean age of students: 27.5 years

• Age range: 21- 48 years

• 87% female

• 9% foreign nationals

Could Twitter facilitate learning about MCH?

Connect to innovative individual and organizational experience

Update students on current trends

Streamline access to useful MCH information

Strengthen social cohesion of the class

“Just setting up my Twttr”

Jack Dorsey (@ Jack)

with partners Evan Williams and Biz Stone launched a communications revolution

• Each Tweet is 140 characters in length.

• Around 300 million users worldwide.

• 140 million tweets are sent daily. One billion weekly.

• Widely used for politics, marketing, journalism, business, and celebrity gossip.

•Asked students to open an account or use their own.

•Introduced objectives for using Twitter.

•Series of assignments over the first 7 weeks of the course.

•Asked students to open an account or use their own.

•Introduced objectives for using Twitter.

•Series of assignments over the first 7 weeks of the course.

Our Twitter Assignment

. Requirements Deadlines

1.Open Twitter Account and follow @IH887_BU. - Must include picture and bio

09/13/11

2. Send the first tweet 09/20/11

3. Tweet 25 times. - Every tweet must include @IH887_BU. - At least 15 tweets MUST be related to your technical review area. - You are allowed to re-tweet (RT)

11/01/11

4. Comment (at least five times) on your classmate’s tweets or any tweets from the people you follow.

5. Follow at least ten people that specialize on your technical area.

6. Engage at least one conversation about your technical area with another classmate.

7. Extra: You can advertise your blog, post YouTube videos, news, etc. The sky is the limit.

Situ

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at t

he b

egin

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of

the

Cour

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Characteristics Percentage

Understood in general terms 48%

No Twitter account 77%

Would like to know more about twitter use in Global Health 96%

• Most common reason of not using Twitter:

“Twitter is not an efficient use of my time”.

• Digication-IH887- Twitter Feed

Our Twitter Account

Twitter Analytics:http://foller.me/

Survey Results

1.General Impressions2.Benefits3.Limitations

General Impressions % % Change

“Twitter can be an effective tool to facilitate learning.” 72% +25%

“Twitter is useful to get updated and current news around the world”

86% +29%

“Twitter is a great tool to connect with people and learn about Global Health issues around the world”

75% +23%

“It is good to learn about how to use twitter in Public Health School” 81% +29%

“Twitter can be an effective tool to facilitate my learning” 81% +34%

Situation at the END

of the Course

What students thought…

• “I was resistant to Twitter, but it was a beneficial part of the class”

• “I was very reserved about joining Twitter because I am already on other social networking sites and I thought it would be a waste of my time. But, I have found that I can use Twitter in a different way, to advance my knowledge and connections”.

• I plan to keep using Twitter. I like how I can keep on top of global news and other people's thoughts on the links they post.

• It's quite entertaining since the news that is tweeted is picked by you since you pick the people that you follow.”

2.1 Increased Global Health Knowledge

85% reported that following experts increased their knowledge.

“When I went on, it was great to see how many people are excited about public health news. It made me want to be more up-to-date on what is going on in my field. I hope I can get more into it to stay on top of what is going on”

2.2 Exposure to Global Health News

“Twitter exposed me to a lot of breaking public health news… it allows you to connect and synthesize different issues and problems happening on a global level”

2.3 Interaction Between Students and Experts

“Partners in Health joined a conversation I was having with a classmate about one of their tweets”.

“(I) Tweeted about something PATH did and they started following me and thanked me for my tweet”.

2.4 Learning How to Use Twitter Professionally

“I think it’s good that I'm comfortable using it in case I need to Tweet about a program or project I'm working on in the future”.

Limitations

Time Constraints– “Maybe I’ll keep on using twitter, but not until I'm done

with my MPH and have more time.... it’s definitely not a priority”

Requires Work– Could miss updates/news if you are not checking your

news feed frequently making it hard to keep up.

Conclusions Students like Twitter

Twitter expands access to information and expertise

Twitter offers potential for cross-pollination from other courses

Twitter takes time

The ground rules for using Twitter are still developing.