Abstract
My Twitter profile (@Roses_Parker) informs me that I joined Twitter in March 2016. I was told that Twitter was important for research so I obediently signed up and tentatively ‘hatched’ my first Tweet. From there things grew. I am now JCHC’s Associate Editor for Social Media and I founded and manage the Twitter account for one of the Cochrane Collaboration’s eight networks. Still, I don’t consider myself an expert at social media, I feel have a lot to learn. However, I have certainly come a long way. It seems appropriate for me to use this space to share my journey, inspire use of social media, and guide readers to support its use.
Social media, a result of the technological revolution, surrounds us constantly in both personal and professional spheres. It includes Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, blogs, Pinterest, YouTube, Sina Weibo, WeChat and many others not listed. No doubt more platforms are being designed right now. I will focus on Twitter but know that most of this can be applied elsewhere.
Originally I was told Twitter was important for researchers to use as self-promotion in a society where if you don’t promote yourself you will fall behind because others certainly will. This is indeed a benefit of Twitter @JournalofCHC and I are always happy for more ‘followers’ but the purpose of this editorial is not to discuss the self-promotion aspect of Twitter. I cannot claim my use of Twitter is entirely absent self-promotion but I can say this not my main purpose. Neither is it the reason I am so passionate about Twitter and why I am writing to encourage your use of it. If you want to use it for personal gain, then you will certainly gain. But I am here to talk about how we can use Twitter to help patients.
My main reason for passionate use of Twitter stems back to why I first dipped my toe into healthcare, why I joined the London Ambulance Service, why I became a children’s nurse and why I now work for the Cochrane Collaboration. Simply, patients are my passion and Twitter can help patients, not just a little bit.
Although Twitter’s use in healthcare has been debated (Pershad et al., 2018), I believe, at point of writing, that Twitter is potentially research’s best vehicle for knowledge translation. Twitter has 330 million monthly active users (Lin, 2019). It is free for researchers to use and free for patients to access. The character limit takes brevity to a new level and the result is patients are engaged. It cannot be ignored; we owe it to patients to participate in this platform.
My three tips for Twitter are the following:
Quality not quantity. You may have infinite time at your disposal but I don’t. I have found that one or two carefully crafted Tweets can have far greater impact than a daily Tweet bombardment. Too many Tweets can lead people to become numb to you and your messages. You want your followers to pay attention to what you say. I would like to suggest that we consider the Cochrane Collaboration’s recent Knowledge Translation Dissemination Checklist (Glenton et al., 2019). This is an 18-item checklist presented on a single page for those in a rush, nine pages for those with a little more time, or if seriously committed 92 pages. While some relates only to Cochrane Reviews, most content is vital for creating dissemination products which can be truly useful to patients. Know your target audience. Consider who needs to know about this research. You might think your employer, supervisor, potential future co-authors are the target audience. While these people will help you spread your research and maybe give you a job, the chances are, the people who really need to know about it are people you will never meet. You need to ensure that what you Tweet is relevant, useful and easy for these people to understand. The first item on the Cochrane Collaboration’s Dissemination Checklist asks ‘Have you involved your target audience or sought their feedback?’ Involving your target audience can ensure you are using words they understand. It can help to check that the picture you’ve selected is communicating what you intended. It is also important to make sure you are being sensitive to any potentially distressing findings. Use a Tweet scheduler, such as TweetDeck or Hootsuite. This enables you to spread your Tweets throughout the day or week or even years. You can target specific time zones or awareness days. There are plenty schedulers available, ask colleagues, try a few. Using these platforms just 10 minutes a day – an attainable target – can lead to an impressive Twitter presence which helps attract the right patients (Harding, 2019).
At the Journal of Child Health Care, we Tweet every article we publish. Including Twitter handles of our authors helps ensure they can re-Tweet to their relevant audience. Asking authors for a suggested Tweet means we can ensure phrasing is sensitive to the patient group and jargon is minimised. In addition, authors may choose to provide Twitter handles for relevant patient groups and organisations who may be interested. We have held Twitter Journal Clubs in which one article is temporarily made available for free. During this time, the Journal of Child Health Care poses daily questions for discussion. Findings and implications of an article are debated throughout a week on Twitter. This medium enables authors to engage with patients, families, clinicians, students, and researchers who they would never meet face-to-face.
Patient health, specifically child health, is at the heart of what we do and social media provides a platform to spread health information and ultimately lead to health improvement. This is an important opportunity to improve child healthcare. Engaging with this platform is a responsibility we have to our patients, and is becoming a key part of doing research, so we implore you to try Twitter with patients in mind.