The inaugural #DPTStudent tweetchat took place this past Wednesday, Nov 28.
It was a huge success! How do you measure success? With these analytics of course, taken from the hour that the chat occurred:
66 twitter accounts participated
Most of these accounts were that of PT students of course, but we also saw PT faculty and PT programs participating.
486 tweets issued
This new hashtag stacks up well compared with other established PT hashtags, as illustrated by this fancy chart (note: the number on the chart is > 486 because this chart shows total tweets for the entire day):
389 tweets per hour, 7.36 tweets per participant
We expect to see these numbers jump once the word gets out about the tweetchat. A figure of 7.36 tweets per participant indicates that although there was a small group, they were all very engaged with one another.
155,083 impressions made
“Impressions” is a metric for how many impressions a healthcare hashtag has made in users’ tweet streams. Symplur computes total impressions by taking the number of tweets per participant and multiplying it with the number of followers that participant currently has. This is done for all participants in this time period and then finally the numbers are added up.
The influencers
Being atop the mentions column means your tweets were interesting enough for others to respond back to you, the tweets column explains itself, the impressions column shows the heavy hitters whose tweets were viewed by the massive number of followers they have.
The transcript
The topic of the first DPTStudent tweetchat was “Why PT?”. It was a great discussion, one that we suggest you relive by looking at the chat transcript.:
#DPTStudent – Healthcare Social Media Transcript
Conclusions
Tweetchats are a great forum to connect users with a common interest. #DPTStudent is bringing PT students from across the country together the exchange thoughts and ideas in a meaningful way. This is just another example of the power the PT profession can leverage by using emerging media. Let’s keep an eye on this and see how big it can get.
I’m reminded of a saying that ‘not all that can be counted, counts’. This might be compared to a way to determine the value of a class by counting the number of people entering the room and comparing it to the number who signed up, the number who raise their hand, make a comment, etc. and determining from that the actual value of the class to the students who pay $200 per hour for it. Tweet chats are notoriously inefficient and I think, not too effective. Try to read the chat and see what you get from it: after sorting thru the greetings, the personal notes, the retweets, you have to try to understand who is responding to whom, what they are talking about and whether its new info or just agreement, etc. I’ve actually tried to find the real content in a few tweetchats and found a few real insights in a sea of irrelevance. There must be a better way. Anyway, to Dr Pascoe – good work with the stats and their presentation. For me, it proved my points. For others it might get them excited to an opportunity I just don’t see. In any event, the best measure is to ask people who participated what they got out of it and if it was a good use of time and especially: would they do it again and Why?
A couple of thoughts.
Thank you for commenting on the post and sharing your opinions. Are tweetchats effective? This depends on what the end goal is. For me, a tweetchat represents a way to find others that are discussing something I am interested in. From a tweetchat I gain many contacts with whom I can chat with at other times in a more efficient way. Twitter is like a dinner party that allows you to jump around from conversation to conversation. If a tweetchat is not going well, then you have the ability to stop participating. There certainly are better ways to have a coherent conversation, but nothing else comes close to reaching so many people with a similar interest as you. After all, it is a “chat”, not a well structured platform for formal discussion. Save that for the next time you meet up at a conference.
If this or any other tweetchat represents irrelevant banter that goes no where, then people will find better things to do with their time and the number of participants will drop off. I recommend looking at the other 85 healthcare-related tweetchats that happen every week and see if meaning can be found there as well – http://www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags/tweet-chats/ – This remind me of a saying, maybe a tweetchat can’t be “All things to all people.” And I think it’s fine if a tweetchat holds no value to you or anyone else.
No for the fun part. What say you participants in tweetchats? Would you participate again, and why?
I would tend to agree with Michael. I do think indeed there is much irrelevance with a tweetchat. I participated in one about a week ago and there were no more than 10-12 participants and it can be very overwhelming just keeping up with the stream and that’s with a rather small group. I find it additionally a flawed platform in that it’s difficult to get points across and/or absorb a point being made when there is the restrictive 140 characters. Then factor in the wasted characters with the frequent @heyyou and necessary # and you’re left with a fragmented expression of thought. For me I additionally have to translate the at times very foreign Twitter language into some sense of coherence too. I think there’s definitely value to be had in terms of posting of links or making new connections but to have a “wow” conversation, it’s not the best platform.
I will continue to follow and participate with tweetchats but after I comb through all the distraction, irrelevance, and certain people trying to combine to rule the discussion, I usually discover a point that could be made in a paragraph or two to sum up the entire conversation. Kind of like minutes of a meeting.
I’m sure my comments will ruffle some feathers but hopefully a respect of honesty will win out. Plus I wanted to let Michael know he’s not alone.