A quick tutorial...

1. Best Practices of Conference
Twitter Engagement
Tricia Pendergrast, BA | Twitter: @traependergrast
M1, Feinberg School of Medicine
tricia.pendergrast@northwestern.edu

2. Disclosures
No financial disclosures.

3. Objectives
1. Participants will gain an understanding of best practices of social
media engagement at academic conferences.
2. Participants will feel confident utilizing social media platforms in a
professional manner.

4. A. General Twitter Engagement
Essential Vocabulary:
• Hashtag
• Live-tweeting
• Tag
• Trending
• Like
• Retweet
• Follower
• Follow
• DM

5. B. Build Your Bio
Key elements to include:
• Current Affiliation
• Research/MedED Interests
• Pertinent Hashtag (ex. #SDOH, #pedsICU, #MedED)
• Location
• Picture (does not need to be your professional headshot, should be
just you/your family)
If you have room:
• Fun Fact (ex. “dog mom,” “amateur baker,” “puzzle master”)

6. B. Build Your Bio

7. C. Tweeting about Research
Make sure there is not a “no twitter” disclosure on the speaker’s slides.
Key elements to include:
• Tag the author(s)
• Goals of the article/talk
• Main findings/impactful statement
• Link to the article (if published)
• Include a picture (screenshot of article or slide) and tag
authors/publisher/sponsoring entity (often the academic institution)
• Use appropriate #, such as the conference’s #• t
• T
• Tag authors

8. C. Tweeting about Research –
Example #1
Exciting opener
Sponsoring institution
Impactful statement
Various stakeholders
Link to paper
Image from article
The author tagged
#pedsICU medtwitter
colleagues

9. C. Tweeting about Research –
Example #2
Exciting opener
Sponsoring institution
Impactful statement
Image from talk
The author tagged
medtwitter
colleagues

10. C. Tweeting about Research –
Example #3
Audience Response:
What did Dr. Kudchadkar do well?

11. C. Tweeting about Research –
Example #3 Exciting opener/
tagged journal
Summary statement
Relevant hashtags
The author tagged
medtwitter
colleagues
Link to paper
Info re: study design

12. D. Live-tweeting
What is live-tweeting?
A real-time “play-by-play” of a lecture, talk, or panel whereby
important quotes, content, or findings are shared via social
media.

13. D. Live-tweeting & General
Conference Tweeting – Example #1
Shared literature
discussed by the speaker
Summarized
important
points of
introduction
Shared and
reacted to
impactful
findings
Direct, important
quote from the
speaker
Started
my
thread

14. D. General Conference Tweeting
– Example #1
Audience response:
What did Dr. Kudchakar do well?

15. D. General Conference Tweeting
– Example #1
What did Dr. Kudchadkar do well?
• Clear picture
• Appropriate content
attributions
• Relevant hashtag use (subject
matter AND conference
hashtag)
• Link to study website
• Tagged stakeholders, including
study team