Good practices in harnessing social media for scholarly discourse, knowledge translation, and education

Twitter

Users may find it prudent to divide out different accounts for different usages. Some suggested divisions:

– Person-level professional account

– Group/Institutional

– Research Team

Group/Institution:

@WeAreCanadiEM (www.canadiem.org)

Residency Program account

Departmental account

Research Team:

@METRIQstudy (www.metriqstudy.org)

When engaging in social media promotion of research, consider the following practices when generating a tweet:

– Include an image in the tweet

– Use descriptive language

– Tag people involved

– Tagging related organizations or granting agencies involved in the work

– Tagging the journal that the article was published within

– Using hashtags to join the right conversation

Advanced concepts include:

– Tweet chats

Understand the nuances between accounts. Have a clear intent and purpose for each account

“You have to be aware of what the purpose of each account is and certainly the purpose of my department’s account is very different than my account.”—Piper

“I am really deliberate in my use of hashtags. I also try not to spam. (Laughing). So, like three or less hashtags in a tweet… Also, in my communication, I will take tag certain people that I want to make sure that they are aware.”—Grace

Facebook

Person-level account

N/A

Facebook pages—Group/Institutional

CanadiEM Facebook Page

Instagram

Group/Institutional

PEM Morsels

CanadiEM

Closed social platform

Used for within team communication to enhance the functioning of a team of social media users or producers (e.g. blog community)

Groups using Slack:

ALiEM

CanadiEM

Blog

Used for housing general summaries and disseminative works, but also to release new scholarly contributions via a digital platform.

“… we have been producing a case of the week. And disseminating that internationally with our pathology residents and fellows … using blogging platform to do that with the question. It is a short snippet of the case—80 words or less. It has an image or digital image. Like a digital scan and pathology slide as well as the question that goes with it. So that is another way that we have used social media for learners and also for our faculty.”—Grace

Podcasts

A possible outlet for digital scholarship and academic output. Can be used as its own free-standing academic output, since it is seen as digital scholarship

EM Basic (for junior trainees)

EM Guidewire (involves residents)

Other platforms mentioned without good practice advice: Reddit, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Blogs, Read by QX, ResearchGate

Use common sense

“I guess it is fairly straightforward. Just don’t be an idiot… I don’t know I guess I don’t do heaps and heaps of tweeting myself but if I am responding to somebody it will usually be to make sure that I say something positive or say nothing at all.”—Sheila

Clearly identifying yourself, including conflicts of interest

“I clearly identify myself as my Twitter handle is not my name, but my name is on my Twitter profile. And yeah, I think that is pretty straightforward… like, just behave properly.”—Sheila

“It’s just really thinking about your profile is a best practice. Just thinking about being transparent to the community [about] who you are and … what you are going to be communicating about in that social media platform. So, [regarding] your presence in your profile, I think another best practice that I really try and think about and encourage other people to think about as well.”—Grace

Aligned with self and institution

“I’ve tried to make all of my intentions honorable and things that I would be proud of representing and that would reflect on my institution and institutions in a positive way. And so, my interactions again are founded on what is going to be best for patient care and kindness and making my intentions honorable. And so those are all things that I think of as core values that the institutions that I am affiliated with … support.”—Edward

Understand the intention of each account in each platform

“I am a big believer in aligning my technology with my goals that I want to achieve. And also separating personal and professional. So, I chose Twitter because at the time it was where I was connecting with people in medical education, finding that it seems like that is where the audience that I wanted to connect with professionally was currently at. I felt like Facebook was more personal. Um, and that Instagram and other, and Instagram especially I guess was just starting to emerge when I was working with getting myself established in medical education. Um, now have I moved to Instagram. I use Instagram, um, more to help I guess personal[ly], but I guess some I had done some work connecting with other professionals on it just a little. Slack is one that I use …”—Grace

Maintaining respect

“I think in general you try to um, be polite and professional. Like I don’t necessarily think delving into in depth articles on Twitter is necessary or appropriate, um, however responding to people who are having questions or being critical of things I think it is a very reasonable way to go. And [I] try to do it in a respectful way… And that can be productive [in] conversation”—Trevor

Stay positive

“if I am responding to somebody, it will usually be to make sure that I say something positive or say nothing at all.”—Sheila

“… always assume that if there is two ways to read something then thinking the kinder way is the way that somebody wants you to read it; I think it is a good rule of thumb because you know like I said, it is hard to interpret tone.”—Anthony

“So, [an important aspect is] being respectful, you know only saying things that you would say to other people for the most part being particularly I would say from a department account you know being very positive about all of the people that you work with. I think kind of from a formal account, really you probably have to be positive, [an] uplifting voice.”—Piper

Avoid arguments

“I am always surprised at how argumentative some people get. And I think that is a little bit of a shame because I don’t think that … sort of reflects well and this idea about somewhere in between you know maintaining some appropriate composure versus being a skeptic and questioning things. And there are definitely some people who do a good job of that and some people that don’t.”—Sheila

Knowing when to end a conversation

“If there are people that are engaging that seem to have a substantial agenda, then I am more likely to not continue the conversation for long while still being respectful and just [stop] interacting.”—Trevor

Anticipate trolls

“I mean you will occasionally get trolled by negative people…I thankfully haven’t had too much with that but every once in a while, something that I put it out on #1, some naysayer will put something negative or sort of like oh it is just like #6 to do something like this.”—Paula

“You know there [are] always trolls, right? But I think of one, so before I hit publish on anything, I am like super critical of myself first. So, I think if you already are highly concerned about the words that you use and the product that you are publishing then you are going to find that most people are not out there to be obstinate and/or aggressively negative. And if there is a question then usually it is raised with a more honest and um, straightforward inquiry rather than being malicious.”—Harold

Engage across silos

“I tried to actively engage others across multiple specialties and disciplines. So not just emergency physicians but other physicians, and not just physicians but nurses and technologists and the public. So, it is mostly I think the fact that I tried to cross barriers that might otherwise limit the scope of other people who are on social media.”—Roger

Amplify others

“if there was someone that I know that is doing something cool or having something awesome to happen then I might favorite that or retweet that.”—Trevor

“I tried to disseminate most of the work that we publish. I try to, anything that we publish that I think is worth making people aware of, I will put a plug in for it. Sometimes I will do a Twitter thread if it is a particularly important study. And I will often tag junior investigators or colleagues to increase their follower count.”—Nadir