1. Enabling Community
through Social Media
Anatoliy Gruzd
Associate Professor,
Director of Social Media Lab
Ryerson University
Vancouver, BC
Oct 24, 2015

2. Health Care Social Media Canada
#hcsmca
Twitter Community
Gruzd, A. & Haythornthwaite, C. (2013). Enabling Community through Social Media.
Journal of Medical Internet Research 15(10):e248.
doi: 10.2196/jmir.2796. PubMed PMID: 24176835.
2Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd

3. Background
• #hcsmca is a vibrant community of people interested in exploring social
innovation in health care. We share and learn, and together we are
making health care more open and connected
• #hcsmca hosts a tweet chat every Wednesday at 1 pm ET. The last
Wednesday of the month is our monthly evening chat at 9 pm ET.
Source: http://cyhealthcommunications.wordpress.com/hcsmca-2/
3Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd

4. Research questions
1. What accounts for the relative longevity of this particular
online community?
• Is it because of the founder’s leadership and her continuing
involvement in this community?
• Or is there a core group of members who are also actively and
persistently involved in this community?
2. What is the composition of this community? Does one’s
professional role/title determine a person’s centrality within
this community.
4Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd

5. Step 1: Data Collection
Data: Public Twitter messages that mentioned the #hcsmca
hashtag/keyword
Collection Period: November 12 – December 13, 2012
Software: Netlytic http://netlytic.org
5Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd

6. Topics Covered (1)
Nov 14, 2012 T1: Challenge of engaging SM to inform a research agenda
T2: Use of innovation, SM, and gamification to encourage uptake of self-care
6Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd

7. Topics Covered (2)
Nov 21, 2012 T1 Healthcare blogs should we or shouldn’t we, what have we learned, what
are the benefits?
T2 Are healthcare blogs a useful tool for education and knowledge transfer?
7Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd

8. Topics Covered (3)
Nov 28 2012 T1: How has social media made you healthier? Unhealthier? Has social
media made our health choices more numerous and this overwhelming?
T2: What messaging would motivate you to make a positive health change?
Who would you listen to?
8Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd

9. Making Sense of Social Media Data
9
Social Media Data -> Visualizations -> Understanding
Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd

10. Making Sense of Social Media Data
Social Media Data -> Visualizations -> Understanding
Nodes = People
Edges /Ties (lines) = Relations/ “Who talks to whom”
Social Network Analysis (SNA)

11. Automated Discovery of Online Social Networks
Example: Tweets
@John
@Peter
@Paul
Nodes = People
Ties = “Who retweeted/ replied/mentioned whom”
Tie strength = The number of retweets, replies or
mentions
11Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd

12. Network visualization in Netlytic:
http://netlytic.org/gephi/sigma.php?c=0ZnbSm6D23u07bT0&viz=2
12Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd
#hcsmca
Communication
Network on Twitter
(Nov 12 - Dec 13)

13. #hcsmca
Communication
Network on Twitter
(Nov 12 - Dec 13)
*Roles are assigned manually
Roles Count
SM health content
providers 110
Unaffiliated individual users 89
Communicators - not
specifically health related 74
Communicators - Health
related 59
Healthcare professionals 50
Health institutions 31
Advocacy 30
Students 16
Educators, professors 13
Researchers 10
Government and health
policy makers 4
Node size = In-Degree Centrality
13Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd

14. • Nodes are automatically grouped
based on their roles
• No apparent clustering among
people in the same role (notice
cross-group ties)
Procedure: Analysis of Variance Density Test using UCINET
14Anatoliy Gruzd Twitter: @gruzd
#hcsmca
Communication
Network on Twitter
(Nov 12 - Dec 13)

15. Conclusions
• Leaders and core participants can seed a network by altruistic or proactive use that,
initially, provides more benefit to others than they receive in return.
• However, for long-term sustainability that persists beyond leadership change, the
network needs to grow in a way that distributes leadership and participation beyond
single leaders.
• More prominent actors are engaged in multiple networks relating to health matters.
As these actors also bridge networks, they are able to carry the message of the
network to others.
• Peripheral participants represent untapped resources for the network. Finding out
what motivates such participants can help identify those who will make contributions
in the future and thus how to bring their participation into the community.