1. Leveraging the Power of Twitter:
Executing & Evaluating a Twitter Chat
August 7, 2012

4. CDC NPIN Social Media Channels
Goal: Improve & increase communication channels available to CDC NPIN partners
Twitter: www.twitter.com/cdcnpin
Daily News/Resource Updates
Live Event Coverage
Live Chats
Facebook: www.facebook.com/cdcnpin
Photo Sharing
Commenting/Notes
Google Plus
Group Video Chats (hangouts)
LinkedIn
Discussions/Professional Development
Training Opportunities

5. A Bit About Twitter
What is it?
A “microblogging” site for networking and information/resource sharing
140 characters
Who is Using Twitter? *
Number of U.S. adult Twitter users: 7.1M by 2013
15 percent of online adults use Twitter - 8 percent use it daily
More than one quarter of online African-Americans (28%) use Twitter
26 percent of Internet users age 18–29 use Twitter
*Smith, Aaron and Brenner, Joanna Twitter Use 2012 Pew Internet & American Life Project, May 31,
2012 http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Twitter-Use-2012.aspx accessed Aug 1, 2012

6. Twitter Chats
• Interactive, online discussions
• Real-time
• Bring a community of people together
• Dig deeper into a set topic for a specified period of time
• Opportunity to connect across geographic boundaries
• Network and share ideas
• Develop potential off-line partnerships

7. Planning Your Chat
• Choose a topic: key public health issues for your community, hot topics,
something your audience is already talking about, the day/month’s
events/observances
• Know your goals and audience
• Create a short hashtag to be used with every tweet
• Organize the chat into key segments to keep focused on purpose and
messages
• Prepare an outline of the chat

8. Ongoing Health Chats
Source: Healthcare Hashtag Project – symplur.com
#hcsm: health care communications and social media
#MDchat: physician issues
#RNChat: nursing issues
#eldercarechat: elder care professionals and caregivers
#MHSM: mental health and social media
#HITsm: health IT and social media

9. Chat Promotion
• Invite partners to join you, give them a
clear role, and ask them to promote
• Notify key influencers on Twitter
• Promote the chat through all your
communication channels
• Have an online home with chat
information so people can learn more
about how to participate

10. Sample Chat Structure

11. Hosting the Chat
• Set internal roles - Monitor and
responder roles are important. Make
sure everyone has a copy of the
outline/script and knows their roles
• Go with the flow AND stay on topic
• Monitor hashtags after the chat;
questions and comments often come
in later
• Follow up

12. Recurring Chat - #NPINchat
• Series of monthly open
chats on topics around
HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STDs,
and TB
• Opportunity for
collaboration—get partners
involved as featured guests
• Facilitate linkages between
partners

13. Chat Blitz - #NHTDchat
• Series of 5 chats, in the week leading up to
National HIV Testing Day 2011
• Open chats with HIV leaders on topics:
Social Media, Testing, Primary Care, NHTD,
and Mental Health/ Substance Abuse
• 397 participants, increased followership of
all accounts, and sustained collaborative
relationships

14. #NHTDchat

15. #NHTDchat

16. #NHTDchat

17. Social Media Outcomes
high-profile exposure of messages

18. Social Media Outcomes
broaden followership and reach

19. Other Outcomes
• Increases face-to-face communication and adds to
conversations and partnership development and collaboration
• Creates visibility in online communities
• Drives traffic to your Web site

20. Measuring Outcomes
• Participants
• Number of tweets
• Messages/retweets
• Unique questions
• Shared resources
• Potential reach
• New connections
• Web site visits

21. AIDS 2012 Conference Social Media Statistics
Total Stats (All Keyword Groupings) July 22 - July 27
Day Total Posts Unique Sources Retweets *Potential Twitter Reach Positve Negative Neutral
428,052,971
Total Stats (All Keyword Groupings) 54,792 15,511 28,147 428,052,971 0.06% 0.03% 99.91%
Topic Trend

22. Helpful Hints
• Keep tweets under 140 characters to allow room for
commenting and re-tweets
• Test all your links before sending
• When appropriate, tweet pictures to increase
engagement
• Include hashtags to help people follow the conversation
(1-2 hashtags is ideal)*
*www.buddymedia.com

23. Helpful Tools
• CDC Social Media Toolkit and Guide to Writing for Social Media
www.cdc.gov/socialmedia
• AIDS.gov new media tools
• Tweetdeck.com
• Hootsuite.com
• Tweetchat.com
• Symplur.com (healthcare hashtag project)
Free Tracking
• Tweetreach.com
• Hashtracking.com—tracks twitter chats
• tweriod.com—tracks best times for tweets based on your and your followers’
tweets
Purchased Tracking
• Radian 6
• PeopleBrowsr
• Lithium

24. Acknowledgements
• Cynthia Newcomer – Danya International, CDC NPIN
• Sherese Bleechington – Danya International, CDC NPIN
• F.E. Harrison – CDC, NCHHSTP
• Erin Edgerton – Danya International

25. www.cdcnpin.org
info@cdcnpin.org
Melissa Beaupierre
mbeaupierre@cdcnpin.org
Also find CDCNPIN on