Lifting lives, 140 characters at a time.
― Germany Kent
What is Twitter?
Twitter is a social networking, news, and microblogging service that allows you to send out short messages called “tweets”. A tweet can be text, links or any media – photos, video, or a GIF. Tweets used to be limited to 140 characters but this increased to 280 characters last 2018. Here’s the anatomy of a tweet:
Should You Use Twitter?
You are what you tweet
Alex Tew
An early social media adapter, I joined Twitter out of curiosity. I took a username related to my job, @bonedoc which was available that time. I followed friends and people who share my interests- photography, book authors, e- learning and healthcare. I once thought twitter is just for people’s bursts of trivial updates or memes. Twitter turned out to be sometimes like that and much much more. Here’s a decision tree to help you decide on whether to use twitter or not.
Twitter as a Learning Tool
The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what makes it so powerful.”
Jonathan Zittrain
One can just lurk reading others’ (public) tweets. To filter noise however, you have to curate information showing up in your feed. In twitter lingo, the hashtag enables curation of tweets. Curating for me is already half of the learning part on twitter. Curating information hones your filtering, organising and analytical skills. Curating tweets according to relevance and area of interests led me to information previously unavailable to me.
A networking tool?
LinkedIn is for the people you know. Facebook is for the people you used to know. Twitter is for people you want to know.
Source unknown
Lurking and curating is just half of the fun on Twitter. Once I got comfortable with tweeps and tweets, I started tweeting my own thoughts. To whom? I began looking for my tribe or community. I thought of growing my network. I used twitter list to “categorize” the interest of the people I follow. I soon stumbled at colleagues experimenting with social media and twitter. I co- founded a social media healthcare group called #HealthXPh that mostly relies on twitter for discussing healthcare issues in the Philippines. My twitter network grew hundredfolds since then and still growing up to now.
Improving higher order thinking skill
Tweeting has taught me the discipline to say more with fewer words.
Adam Grant
Twitter also had this profound effect on my higher order thinking skills. Curation pressures you to analyse relevant but discard trivial stuff. The 140 character limited tweets forces you to distill your thoughts and replies in a concise and succinct manner. Tweeting broaden my perspectives on many issues, instilled the love for sharing ideas or collaborating with like minded individuals while respecting those whose thoughts diametrically opposed yours.
Of course Twitter is a fun and lively way to meet new people who share your interests and profession. A great majority of curating and networking on Twitter started when I joined twitter chats.
Enter Twitter Chats
It’s not just about consuming content, but sharing it, passing it on, and adding to it.
“- @ariannahuff
A Twitter chat is a virtual meeting of people engaging in a conversation about a shared topic of interest. Twitter chats are typically public chats, meaning people on twitter can view tweets in it. It is usually moderated by a host and happens live on Twitter during a pre designated, agreed upon time slot. A hashtag is used or appended to tweets in this chat, to filter conversations, allowing participants to follow the discussion. To participate, the hashtag is appended on the reply tweets
Most Twitter chats are recurring- either weekly, monthly, quarterly, focusing on a topic introduced by a moderator. Topic is usually introduced in a blog post or any other public social media platform. The chats usually last one hour with the moderator often summarising the output of the chat. A transcript of tweets is ideally made available after the chat has ended.
Seriously, Twitter chats for healthcare?
Points of views that are expressed on Twitter don’t intend to offend, but rather defend and open the conversation up to everyone so that no one has to pretend.
Germany Kent
The idea is laughable ten years ago. If you look closely in Symplur’s healthcare hashtag project registry of healthcare twitter chats today, there are hundreds of health twitter chats. The trailblazer was the Breast Cancer Social Media Chat (#BCSM) started in 2011 by Alicia and Jody, aiming to provide credible and evidence based information to support breast cancer patients. There were published studies of the positive impact of twitter chats on patients health. A lot more studies are being published every year since then.
#HealthXPh started a regular weekly health Twitter chat in the Philippines four years ago. This twitter chat community has since grown both in its influence and ability to impact health discussions in the country. It successfully organised and hosted four annual healthcare social media summit. #HealthXPh and its core team mentored health twitter chats and conferences in the Philippines. The best part of it is that in all these social media buzz #HealthXPh is creating, patients take active roles in it.
In summary I just gave an overview of what is twitter, my personal story of why I profusely use twitter as a learning and networking tool. I also introduced Twitter chats as another way of impacting and influencing healthcare for the better. I leave you with this quote. This might just save (or destroy) healthcare. 🙂
Never underestimate the power of a tweet.
Germany Kent, You Are What You Tweet: Harness the Power of Twitter to Create a Happier, Healthier Life
