In the last two years, live tweeting from medical and education conferences has become mainstream. What better way to stay up-to-date with what is being taught around the globe! Pioneers like Dr. David Marcus (@EMIMDoc) even archive all of the conferences with hashtags, Twitter handles, and topic focus on his EM IM Doc blog.
Optimizing conference tweeting is a matter of debate. Some like to tweet every pearl they hear. Others like to send out a few game-changing tweets per conference. Still others feel each lecture deserves just the 3 or 4 main points be tweeted out. At Academic Life in EM, we have created the @ALiEMConf account to tweet out the minute by minute pearls. Dr. Nikita Joshi (@njoshi8) discussed a few conference tweeting thoughts in a 2013 a blog entry Maximizing Conferences through Twitter.
Avoiding A Common Tweeting Mistake
The purpose of this post is to bring attention to an important technical aspect of Twitter that many may be unaware of. We love to give credit to the lecturer by including their Twitter handle in our tweets. The problem is that if a tweet starts with the @ symbol, Twitter views it is a conversation between just those two users.
Translation to conference tweeting: Only those following both users will be able to see the tweet! Twitter actually addresses this, but it is buried in their help center.
People will only see others’ @replies in their home timeline if they are following both the sender and recipient of the @reply.
Here’s an example from the recent #SMACCgold conference during my good friend, Dr. Haney Mallemat’s (@CriticalCareNow), talk:
@SocraticEM Thanks,that means the world 2 me coming from you,1 of the BEST speakers I’ve ever heard!Thanks 4 your inspiration at #smaccgold
— Haney Mallemat (@CriticalCareNow) March 21, 2014
Dr. Victoria Brazil (@SocraticEM) gave a very nice compliment of Dr. Mallemat’s slides. Since the tweet was started with the @ symbol (ie, @CriticalCareNow), only users following both Dr. Brazil and Dr. Mallemat are able to see that tweet.
Maximize Your Conference Tweeting
If you want all of your followers to see a tweet like that, here are a few solutions to overcome this technical limitation:
- Start the tweet with the speaker’s name (not Twitter handle). Dr. Lauren Westafer (@LWestafer) used this approach.
Mallemat: Beware of static measures of fluid responsiveness… Includes lactate, CVP, UOP, ultrasound in isolation #smaccGOLD
— Lauren Westafer (@LWestafer) March 20, 2014
- Start the tweet with a period and then the lecturer’s Twitter handle. You’ve probably wondered why some folks use a period at the beginning of their tweets. Doing this allows all of your followers to see the tweet. Dr. Leon Gussow (@poisonreview) demonstrates this technique from Dr. Rob Roger’s (@EM_Educator) talk.
.@EM_Educator Good resources for hosting podcasts are http://t.co/zPPNDWaVLg and http://t.co/zBgfjMCagA #smaccGOLD
— Leon Gussow (@poisonreview) March 19, 2014
- Start the tweet with the conference hashtag. Dr. Kath Woolfield (@Lanafeld) used this approach.
#smaccGOLD Myburgh: Beware the imperative to “do what we can” Do what we should.
— Kath Woolfield (@Lanafeld) March 20, 2014
Hopefully a better understanding of this technical Twitter nuance will improve your next conference tweeting experience. Just remember the next time you start your tweet with the @ symbol, not all of your followers will be able to see it. Whether you tweet once or hundred times is up to you!
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