Who Were the Most Influential Twitter Contributers to #HFSA2018 Related Social Media Conversations?

Abstract

Introduction Use of social media (SoMe) before, during, and after major medical meetings has become commonplace. While prior studies have demonstrated the marked year-over-year increase in the number of users and the content they produce, little is known about who these specific contributors are. The aim of this study was to describe the most influential Twitter contributors to SoMe conversations related to the 2018 Heart Failure Society of America's Annual Scientific Meeting (September 15-18, 2018). Methods SymplurRank ( https://help.symplur.com/general/symplurrank ) is a proprietary algorithm that orders influential Twitter accounts by measuring the number of quality mentions received as they relate to a specific healthcare conversation (identified by a unique hashtag). The algorithm is designed to address weaknesses found in commonly used simplistic Twitter metrics such as the number of mentions, tweets, and followers. Additionally this algorithm is designed specifically for healthcare and therefore takes into consideration both an account's influence on a specific health topic and what healthcare stakeholder group any account belongs to. By analogy, it is similar to modern impact factor algorithms for academic journals. For the purposes of this study we obtained data from Symplur regarding the top 100 Twitters influencers who used the hashtag #HFSA2018. We manually reviewed these accounts and classified them into standard categories. Results Between June 15, 2018, and November 15, 2018, 507 unique users used the #HFSA2018 hashtag to generate 1839 tweets. The total number of times tweets with this hashtag appeared in users timelines (i.e. “impressions”) was 3,905,884. The top 100 most influential Twitter users who engaged in the #HFSA2018 conversation, as determined by SympurRank score, are shown in the Figure. Physicians represented the largest category of contributors (74 of the top 100), followed by healthcare organizations (11), and journal/media accounts (6). Professional organizations, including HFSA, the Amyloidosis Foundation, and the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, among others, represented a smaller subset of contributors (5 of the top 100) but on average had the highest SoMe healthcare-related influence (mean SymplurRank score 76). Conclusions Physicians were the largest group of influential Twitter contributors to #HFSA2018-related SoMe conversations. Future research needs to focus on how to increase the participation of other highly influential contributors, such as professional organizations, in SoMe conversations related to major medical meetings.