Workshop presentation to Canadian Society of Physician Executives, June 1 meeting, Vancouver

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Tweeting in Real Time:
A practical
lesson in getting
started in social
media

2. Pat Rich
Director and Editor-in-Chief,
cma.ca
@cmaer
June 1, 2013

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Prologue
I think there are too many people on the Web offering advice to you on
how to use social media. Most of this advice is just regurgitated advice
from people you may never have heard of before, …
You really don’t need “How To” tips on blogging or Twitter. Oh, I’m
confident that you’ll be told otherwise – but those folks, well-
intentioned as they may be, don’t understand that you’re smarter
than that.
You’re bright – you got through organic chemistry and medical school
and years of residency.
Rather than learn bad habits from the get-go, take advantage of your
lack of experience. It’s okay to make mistakes that don’t cause harm
and violate the privacy and dignity of others.
From: Physician Social Media: Has Advice About It Become a
Crock? Yes @philbaumann, Jan. 1, 2013

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Disclosures
 This tutorial will mainly deal with Twitter
 I am not a techie and certainly don’t know it all
 I do spent up to 2 hrs. a day on Twitter or more
 My Twitter account was the pilot for CMA but has
been superseded by CMA_DOCS
 In order for this to work you need to ask questions
as we go along
 No pharma money went into the building of this

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Dr. Eric Topol: Mr. Future Medicine

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What are we talking about?
Social media can be defined as a set of web-based
and mobile technologies that allow people to monitor,
create, share or manipulate text, audio, photos or
video with others.
From: CMA’s Social media and Canadian physicians – issues and rules of
engagement

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Why consider social media?
 To stay informed
 Communicate (engage) with peers and patients
 Disseminate information
 Advocate for/against something
 Because if you decide not to use social media, your
decision should be based on sound knowledge
about what you are choosing not to use

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Why consider social media II
(graduate class)
 For public health purposes (e.g. tracking epidemics
or spread of new pathogens)
 As learning tools in medical education
 To show your clinical technique on YouTube
 To deliver clinical care!!!

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Reasons not to use social media
 Time-consuming
 Don’t understand the technology
 Not paid for it
 At risk for legal or professional consequences
 Not interested in what others have to say, or in
communicating with people using these media

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Dipping your foot in
 Search for yourself on Google
 Open a Twitter account (takes 5 minutes)
 Post a LinkedIn profile
 View an instructional video on YouTube
 Join a physician online community
 Follow a #hcsmca session (Wed. 1pm EST)
 Start an RSS feed

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Deep dive
 Start a blog
 Start a Facebook fan page
 Host a Tweetchat on #hcsmca
 Offer a course with social media engagement
 Start a Twitter journal club
 Host a LinkedIn discussion forum
 Align your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter accounts
and blog
 Discover advanced social media tools

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Reasons to consider ……. Twitter
 To collect information
 To connect with peers – locally and globally
 To connect with subject experts
 To advocate on important (to you) issues
 To recruit patients for studies
 To join discussions
 To follow conference activities
 To report on conference activities

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Twitter is ….
 A microblogging site (140-character maximum)
 A self-contained community where you choose who
to follow -- but not who follows you (although you
can block people)
 A real-time information source

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Twitter terms of service
 What you say on Twitter may be viewed all around the world
instantly. You are what you Tweet!
 You can opt-out of most communications from Twitter
 You are responsible for safeguarding the password that you
use to access the services, and for any activities or actions
under your password.
 Twitter has an evolving set of rules for how ecosystem
partners can interact with your content. These rules exist to
enable an open ecosystem with your rights in mind. But
what’s yours is yours – you own your content (and your
photos are part of that content).
Abridged from Twitter Terms of Service

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Use your real name: Being
anonymous not
recommended

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Email address you will be
using most for Twitter

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Professional or personal
name (Dr?)

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Twitter profile
Who you are in 160 characters or less
Example:
Rheumatologist with an interest health technology.
Mentor for#HealthXL Bootcamp and proud chairman
Macnas Theatre Company.
Galway,Ireland · http://www.ronankavanagh.ie/blog
Specialty
Interests
Location
Links

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Twitter profile II
If employed by an organization specify whether the
views expressed are your own or those of the
organization

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Who to follow
 Colleagues and friends
 Journalists and media outlets
 Peer leaders
 People who follow you
 Medical journals

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Who I follow
 Canadian physicians, residents and med students
 Physicians in other countries
 Medical associations and health care-related
associations
 Patient advocates
 Medical journalists
 Hospital and pharma public relations folks
 @TTLastSpring
 @herdyshepherd1

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Don’t be an egg

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Common Twitter abbreviations
DM = Direct message. A direct-message is a message only you
and the person who sent it can read
RT = Retweet. The tweet you're looking at was forwarded to you
by another user
MT = Modified tweet. This means the tweet you're looking at is a
paraphrase of a tweet originally written by someone else
SM (or SoMe) = Social Media
F2F /FTF = Face to face
FF = Follow Friday
IMHO = In my humble opinion
LOL = Laugh out loud
Modified from Tia Fisher, Social Media Today

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Types of Tweets
 Informational
 Two comprehensive news stories on the launch of DSM-5 tomorrow via
@ap + @reuters http://apne.ws/YOfDLm http://reut.rs/YOfBDb
 As part of a tweet chat
 I think credible blogs also feature good commentary threads showing
they are being read and provoking intelligent comment #hcsmca
 Retweeting somebody else
 RT @faisal_q: #appsforhealth Anita Fineberg advises: For online
consent, get consent and understanding offline w/ patient at the p.o.c.
 Adapting with comment
 A social norm I missed? ""Nowhere else except for the pool is it
acceptable to poop in public ..."
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/130516/theres-
probably-poop-your-swimming-pool …

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Message only this person
Block person’s tweets

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The hashtag #
 Used to represent a conversational thread
 Add to any tweet you want others to see related to
a specific topic, conference or tweet
 Examples:
 #Vancouver
 #hcsmca
 #ccpl13

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Twitter tool 1 – Tweetdeck (or
equivalent)
Organize tweets
Shorten URLs
Pre-program
Tweets

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Twitter problems
Bad
You start getting spam
 SOLUTION – Block (and
report) offending account
Worse
Someone hacks your account
and sends spam from it
 SOLUTION (from Twitter)
 Change your
password
 Revoke connections
to third-party
applications
 Update your
password in 3rd party
applications

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Last reminders
 Never forget Twitter is a public forum and if you say
something bad enough even the delete button
won’t save you
 Automating too many functions (posts, responses)
causes unrest
 Repeat tweets (but not too often)
 Terms and conditions of use change
 Tools and apps change
 Never Tweet when angry, or in a pub after 9 pm
 Twitter can become addictive

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It’s not rocket science … or even
neurosurgery

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Ask me
Pat.rich@cma.ca
And Thank You