Social media and online communities of practice in anaesthesia education – a reply

Abstract

The journal editors thank Kearsley and MacNamara for their letter which contains a number of excellent points about the interface between social media, medical publishing and education 1. We began experimenting with Twitter in 2012 and our journal account, @Anaes_Journal, now has over 18,000 followers 2. It is the aim of our social media strategy to signpost followers from around the world to research that is relevant, practical, readable and useful. We have achieved several high-profile successes that demonstrate the utility of Twitter to this end. Our most popular article on social media now has an Altmetric score of over 1400, and a single Tweet on the day of publication generated > 75,000 impressions and > 500 retweets 3. The ‘TweetChat’ format is becoming a popular way to disseminate the clinical findings of studies on the day of publication, which surely reduces the publication-translation time lag. For example, the recent #FrontOfNeck TweetChat generated > 50,000 impressions in one 24-h period 4. Generally, we receive ~15,000 impressions, 200 link clicks, 40 retweets, 70 likes and 5 replies each day through Twitter. We are now planning a study to determine whether this yields an increase in citations. That said, we may simply never know whether our social media strategy increases the knowledge of our readers and followers, or translates to better care for patients. My heavily biased opinion is that it does. We hope those wishing to learn how to use Twitter will join us for our new workshops at the Association of Anaesthetists Annual Congress and Winter Scientific meetings.