MP37-14 NOW TRENDING: TWITTER USE IN THE UROLOGY COMMUNITY AT THE AMERICAN UROLOGICAL ASSOCIATION ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC MEETING

You have accessJournal of UrologyGeneral & Epidemiological Trends & Socioeconomics: Practice Patterns, Quality of Life and Shared Decision Making IV1 Apr 2016MP37-14 NOW TRENDING: TWITTER USE IN THE UROLOGY COMMUNITY AT THE AMERICAN UROLOGICAL ASSOCIATION ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC MEETING Siobhan Hartigan and Robert Caleb Kovell Siobhan HartiganSiobhan Hartigan More articles by this author and Robert Caleb KovellRobert Caleb Kovell More articles by this author View All Author Informationhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.juro.2016.02.1691AboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Over the past several years, social media outlets have become an integral form of communication and news sharing worldwide. Following this trend, most major academic meetings have started publicizing Twitter hashtags encouraging attendees to help publicize interesting points throughout a conference. The goal of this study is to examine trends in Twitter utilization at the American Urologic Association annual scientific meeting. METHODS Twitter metrics were analyzed from the past five annual meetings of the AUA from 2011 to 2015. The officially promoted hashtag by the AUA and the recognized healthcare conference hashtag by Symplur for 2013, 2014, and 2015 were used to collect data for these years. For 2011 and 2012, raw data was collected using the Twitter advanced search. Only tweets posted during the official dates of the conference were analyzed. Moreover, total impressions, a metric for how many impressions a healthcare hashtag has made in users' tweet streams based on how many followers a particular tweeter has, were also collected and analyzed for the years between 2013 and 2015. RESULTS The number of tweets referencing the AUA annual meeting posted during the meeting was 12 in 2011, 93 in 2012, 3990 in 2013, 9938 in 2014, and 13933 in 2015. The percent increase in number of tweets was 35,000% from 2011 to 2013 and an additional 250% from 2013 to 2015. The average number of tweets per hour was 33 in 2013, rising to 116 in 2015. The number of participants posting at least one tweet has increased from 22 in 2012 to 1881 in 2015 (8450% increase). Additionally, the number of total impressions increased from 7,406,585 in 2013 to 23,043,413 in 2015 (211% increase). CONCLUSIONS The number of tweets and participants on Twitter discussing the AUA annual meeting during the conference has increased dramatically over the last five years. The presence and impact of social media at AUA annual meetings can drastically increase the conference’s ability to rapidly disseminate new concepts to tens of millions of people over the course of several days. As a field constantly at the forefront of medical technology, urologists are likely to continue embracing this trend as an excellent resource to reach peers and patients. © 2016FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 195Issue 4SApril 2016Page: e502 Advertisement Copyright & Permissions© 2016MetricsAuthor Information Siobhan Hartigan More articles by this author Robert Caleb Kovell More articles by this author Expand All Advertisement Advertisement PDF downloadLoading ...