How to Make Your Work Visible - The Ups and Downs of Social Media

1. How to Make
Your Work Visible
The Ups and Downs of Social Media
Matthew Katz, MD
June 2021

2. Conflict of Interest
 Partner, Radiation Oncology Associates PA
 Lowell, MA and Manchester, NH
 Stock ownership: CVS Caremark, Dr. Reddy’s
Laboratories
 No disclosures related to social media

3. Overview
 Rationale
 Definition
 Investing in Networking
 Social media as tools
 Academic oriented
 Open public platform
 N=1 example of benefit
 Using Social Media to Increase Visibility
 Practical Tips
 Trolls and How To Respond

4. Why Do Cancer Research at all?
 Improve quality of clinical care
 Academic mission
 Innovate
 Enhance learning through research and teaching
 Develop and share your expertise
 Writing, speaking to share your idea on how to improve
 If you dedicate time to research, part of the
goal is dissemination
 Have your ideas tested, shared

5. Definition
“Social media are web-based tools for
interaction that, in addition to conversation,
allow users to share content such as photos,
videos, and links to resources”
-- Meredith Gould, The Social Media Gospel

6. Social Media
 Global reach
 Easy access
 Little technical expertise needed to use
 Immediate impact
 Dynamic content
Wikipedia, http://bit.ly/mZcwaH

7. Social Networking for Academics
Users Article Uploads/Day
14 M 15,000
3 M
5 M 71,000
Owens B, The Lancet 2014
1300 share negative results, raw data
every day

8. Nature, August 2014
go.nature.com/fjvxxt

9. Radiation Oncology on Twitter
Novak et al, Pract Radiat Oncol (in press)
- Included key words and #radonc, #radiationoncology

10. #radonc Network and Themes, 2014-6
Top Themes
 Radiation oncology
 Journal club
 Lung cancer
 Breast cancer
 Prostate cancer
 Head & neck cancer
 Palliative care
Prabhu et al
(not published)

11. Disease-Specific Hashtags
 Network with clinicians,
researchers in your field
 Value of interacting with
patients, advocates,
others
 Requires actual
conversations, not just
tweeting to work well
Katz et al, JAMA Oncol 2016
Katz et al, JCO CCI 2019

12. N=1 for Non-Academic Physician
Endpoint 1999-2008 2009-2013 2014-2021
Blog Posts 1 32 61
Peer reviewed Articles 10 5 31
First author 4 2 10
Senior author 0 0 5
% co-authors outside
institution
10% 100% 99%
Articles due to online
network
0 0 29

13. Practical Tips
 Abstract
 Final publication
 Before submission
 After peer-reviewed acceptance
 Public identity

14. Meeting Abstract
 Abstract
 Preliminary data but often shareable via social
media
 Worth doing if
 Introduces a new idea/hypothesis
 Make sure manuscript ready for submission to avoid
getting scooped
 Network including patients may help you share
 Avoid
 Not really peer reviewed yet
 Many abstracts never published

15. Abstract to Publication
Society, Years Publication
Rate
Median
Time to
Publication
ASCO, 2009-11 61% NR
ASTRO, 1999-2001 56% ~ 12 mo
BAHNO, 2009-15 31% NR
CARO, 2007-10 51% 18.5 mo
RANZCR, 2010-13 57% 16.5 mo
Massey et al, Oncologist 2016
Papagikos et al, JACR 2005
North et al, Br J Oral Maxillofac Surg 2020
Meissner et al, Curr Oncol 2014
Croker et al, JMIRO 2018

16. Patient Inclusion & Tweeting the Meeting
 7.6M tweets at 1672 academic conferences, 2014-2016
 Used Twitter API database to determine if patients
included in top 100 influencers at each meeting
 More tweets, more diffusion and more conversation with
patients included (p<0.001 for all)
Utengen et al, JMIR 2017

17. Before submitting to a journal
 Consider preprints
 Attracts journals interested in
your work
 Establishes your work without
delays by peer review process
 Can’t get scooped
 Highly shareable with a DOI
(digital object identifier)

18. After acceptance
 Before published online
 Before submission
 Blog for hospital
 Once online
 Academic networks
 LinkedIn
 Twitter
 Facebook

19. Blog posts
 Hospital PR/Communications
 Summarise your work for them
 Get free editing
 More authentic than a press release
 If done before DOI available for your article, make sure
they add in later
 If released when published, include DOI

20. Increased Citations Sharing on
Academic Network
 Evaluated 31K articles 2009-
2012
 Analyzed citations in 2014
via Google Scholar and
CrossRef
 Articles uploaded had
 51% more citations at 3 years
 69% more citations at 5 years
Niyazov et al, PLoS One 2016

21. LinkedIn
• Can connect with professional network
• Share the hospital blog post here early or at publication
• Post the final publication here so others can access and
share directly

22. Twitter
 Strong oncology presence, share research
often
 Using disease-specific hashtags may help
 Journalists able to see your work directly

23. Facebook
 May cross over into your personal life, so
decide if your work worth sharing here
 More durable posts than Twitter
 Less likely to be found/seen by journalists

24. Features of a TROLL online
Troublemaking
Ridicules
Objectionable content
Lying
Lead astray

25. Reality Check
 Trolls are not people who disagree with you
 Expect debate on Twitter
 Be open to being wrong
 When conversations get heated and emotional,
show respect so you aren’t considered the troll

26. The 5 R’s of Responding to Trolls
 Read, then walk around the block
 Trolls love emotional reactions
 Respectfully ask for them to clarify
 Give benefit of the doubt since it’s only 280 characters
 Reserve and humility are key
 Neutralize, de-escalate the hostile tone
 Redirect topic after making your point
 Indicate you have moved on
 Reject baiting if troll persists
 Don’t give trolls the attention they crave

27. Mr. John Doe ( General Manager )
• Professionalism based upon
• Quality as clinician
• Workmanship
• Citizenship
• Doctors expected to be
• Confident
• Reliable
• Composed
• Accountable
• Dedicated
Chandratilake et al, Clin Med 2010
What the Public Expects

28. Summary
 Social media are powerful communications tools
 Rapid adoption despite poorly defined risks &
benefits
 More connected = more reward and risk