Dr Graham Mackenzie is a former public health consultant now training as a GP in South East Scotland, with an academic interest in the use of social media around medical conferences.
Graham will be analysing all Twitter activity prompted by the conference and reporting back each day on how we can boost the social profile of the conference and the tweeting skills of delegates.
Here are some of Graham’s top tips for Twitter:
Use the official hashtag #RCGPAC
The correct hashtag is crucial for conference tweeting. Twitter has a very specific search rather than the ‘fuzzy’ searches used by Google. So a search for #RCGPAC will not find #RCGPAC19 or #RCGPAC2019. At the Glasgow conference last year more than 900 tweets were ‘lost’ during the NHS Question Time debate because they did not use #RCGPAC.
Use the official hashtag in replies and retweets
Replies that do not use the hashtag #RCGPAC will not be included in searches for the hashtag. You might feel that it interrupts the flow of Twitter dialogue but it is always worth including the hashtag.
Check how Twitter is filtering the content you see
The search function in Twitter, activated either through the search function or by clicking on a hashtag, either displays as ‘Top’ or ‘Latest’ tweets. The ‘Top’ tab will typically favour tweets posted earlier in the conference, while the ‘Latest’ will show all tweets in reverse chronological order. Most people will see the default option – the ‘Top’ selection.
There are also three specific sessions on the use and impact of social media:
A3 Thursday
Championing general practice through blogging, podcasts and social media
L3 Thursday
Making sense of young people’s use of social media: Do we all need a digital detox?
F4 Friday
How many ‘Likes’ does it take to make a good doctor? Exploring the impact of social media on our mental health
To keep up with all the news from the RCGP Annual Conference 2019 visit GPonline.com, the official media partner.
Follow @RCGPAC and @gmacscotland
