Royal Statistical Society Annual Conference in Belfast, September 3 2019

2. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Why am I here?
Darren Dahly (something along the lines of):
Maarten, could you say a few words about the
anatomy of successful tweets
Me:
“Sure”

3. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Disclaimer
I am a medical statistician
with formal training in: Statistics and Epidemiology
no formal training in (science) communication
I tweet fairly regularly (daily, >6000 tweets total)
This talk:
Tweet architecture from perspective of “tweet construction worker”

4. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
My own most “succesful” tweet
https://twitter.com/MaartenvSmeden/status/1083832145779535872

5. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden

6. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmedenhttps://twitter.com/f2harrell/status/1051482281431437312?s=20

7. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmedenhttps://twitter.com/laure_wynants/status/1012302769376714752?s=20

8. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmedenhttps://twitter.com/lakens/status/1166049199470850049?s=20

9. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmedenhttps://twitter.com/jd_wilko/status/1164555368028135424?s=20

10. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Threads
• Tweets are short messages (max 280 characters)
• More to say? Multiple “connected” tweets -> Thread

11. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
About Threads
A series of connected tweets of one person
add as many
as you want

12. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Pop science example
https://twitter.com/tony_breu/status/1017179836320710657

13. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Pop science example
https://twitter.com/tony_breu/status/1017179836320710657
thread “counter”

14. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Pop science example
https://twitter.com/tony_breu/status/1017179836320710657
image
poll
url +
image

15. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Pop science example
https://twitter.com/tony_breu/status/1017179836320710657
Spacing

16. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Pop science example
https://twitter.com/tony_breu/status/1017179836320710657

17. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Shortish thread
https://twitter.com/statsepi/status/1114446089476812800
10 tweets
~ 750 characters total
~ 120 words total
~ 500,000 impressions
2 core tweets
urls to blogs and literature

18. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
The “king” of medical threads
https://twitter.com/ProfDFrancis/status/1023443866555441153

19. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
The “king” of medical threads - LONG
https://twitter.com/ProfDFrancis/status/1023443866555441153

20. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Point of view: intention to treat
https://twitter.com/tmorris_mrc/status/1161219586743853057
22 tweets
~ 200 characters per tweet
~ 750 words total
~ 20,000 impressions
graphics
jokes
hashtags
Personal story

21. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Point of view: area under ROC
https://twitter.com/cecilejanssens/status/1104134423673479169
17 tweets
~ 220 characters per tweet
~ 650 words total
~ 280,000 impressions
Lots of graphics
Invited article
~ 900 new followers

22. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Bookclub
https://twitter.com/EpiEllie/status/1005487535706066946
7 tweets
~ 200 characters per tweet
~ 200 words total
~ 60,000 impressions
graphics, gifs, hashtags
First of 11 threads
10 chapters of Pearl’s Book
of Why

23. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Guide for building a website using R
https://twitter.com/dsquintana/status/1139846569623281664
27 tweets
~ 200 characters per tweet
~ 900 words total
~ 100,000 impressions
Series of video’s

24. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmedenhttps://twitter.com/ADAlthousePhD/status/1123205494968074240
16 tweets
~ 200 characters per tweet
~ 500 words total
~ 50,000 impressions
“plain”
39 comments on PubPeer
https://bit.ly/2MGeGoD
Retraction Watch
https://bit.ly/2U5mG3v
Objections currently “under
review” by journal
Post publication peer review

25. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmedenhttps://twitter.com/MaartenvSmeden/status/1134388823310422016
19 tweets
~ 200 characters per tweet
~ 550 words total
~ 35,000 impressions
For wider non-stats audience
~250 link clicks

26. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
What is the best way for making a science thread?

27. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Pseudo-scientific approach: Twitter polls
https://twitter.com/MaartenvSmeden/status/1164954338642579457

28. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmedenhttps://twitter.com/MaartenvSmeden/status/1164954338642579457

29. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmedenhttps://twitter.com/MaartenvSmeden/status/1164954338642579457

30. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmedenhttps://twitter.com/MaartenvSmeden/status/1164954338642579457

31. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmedenhttps://twitter.com/MaartenvSmeden/status/1164954338642579457

32. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden

33. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Communication is a balancing act

34. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Not all threads are succesful
https://twitter.com/MaartenvSmeden/status/999211017459683329

35. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden
Other science threads
• About cholesterol
https://twitter.com/POhukainen/status/1157328319672721411
• About an unconvincing breast amputation study
https://twitter.com/cecilejanssens/status/1156275140524675072
• About not relying on univariable survival analyses
https://twitter.com/JSheltzer/status/1150828437680074752
• About (wrong interpretation of) p-values
https://twitter.com/statsepi/status/1158849587827871744
• About the problems with measurement of depression
https://twitter.com/EikoFried/status/935098850439847937
• About seven statistical misconceptions
https://twitter.com/MaartenvSmeden/status/1051575138334990337
• About deciding on covariate adjustment in trials
https://twitter.com/statsepi/status/1115902270888128514

36. RSS 2019, Belfast MaartenvSmeden