Using Social Media for Knowledge Dissemination

By Leah Crockett

In a previous post, I described the process that Translating Emergency Knowledge for Kids (TREKK) takes to vet and transform evidence into bedside tools. Development and refinement of these tools are critical steps in the knowledge translation (KT) process, but equally important is ensuring we reach our target audiences and achieve uptake of information.

One way we quickly communicate with our network members and promote resources to our broader audiences is through social media. Over the past five years, there’s been an explosion in the use of social media tools (including podcasts, blogs, twitter), which have given rise to movements such as Free Open Access Medical Education (see FOAM and follow #FOAMed).

Why use social media?

Using social media strategically has the ability to accelerate your KT efforts in a number of ways.

• At an individual level, it’s a great way to virtually attend conferences, webinars, and courses, enhance your research reach, and build relationships around the globe.
• At an organizational level, it is an excellent way to disseminate best practices and perspectives, drive practice change, and spark discussions.
• At an even broader level, it can build on the overall conversations taking place in your field and serve as a medium to keep ideas flowing in real time.

What kind of impact can social media have?

In 2015, our partners at the Alberta Research Centre for Health Evidence (ARCHE) executed a social media strategy to promote topic areas in the TREKK Evidence Repository and share pediatric emergency medicine information and resources. They strategically crafted blog posts and tweets on select topic areas, and tracked activity metrics. The infographic below is an example of the type of content they disseminated. Throughout the course of the promotion, they were able to increase traffic to TREKK’s website, gain more Twitter followers, increase article Altmetric scores, and boost downloads of TREKK’s Bottom Line Recommendations.

Partnerships can also have a powerful impact. TREKK partners with established FOAM contributors who have large follower bases. Last year, podcasts developed through a partnership between TREKK and EMcases achieved upwards of 75,800 downloads. Another post on bronchiolitis with CanadiEM achieved over 2,000 views.

Helpful Hints

If you’re convinced that social media can have an impact on your reach, you may be wondering what you should consider when planning to use it for knowledge dissemination. Robin Featherstone, Research Librarian for ARCHE and TREKK, shares a few helpful hints:

1. Plan for success.

Develop achievable objectives with your stakeholders and establish goals that you can assess (see Tip 4 below). For example, if your goal is to increase Twitter followers, establish your followers before the promotion starts (your benchmark). Look at comparable Twitter accounts, and suggest a reasonable goal (e.g., a 10% increase in followers). These goals will guide your methods and manage expectations for the promotion.

2. Never go it alone.

Social media is an inherently social activity. Share content from partner organizations generously, and they will return the favour. Build a network of social media users who will champion your promotions, and enhance the reach of your messaging. Collaboration is a powerful tool.

3. Have fun…

Be creative. During our social media promotion about childhood vaccination, the Disneyland measles outbreak happened. One of our team members suggested we create the Twitter hashtag #ItsaSmallWorld. It was a simple but effective method to communicate our vaccination messages. Our team was open to having fun, and the atmosphere allowed for creative ideas to surface. Creativity makes for impactful promotion.

4. …But assess like an accountant.

Focus on your main goals (see Tip 1 above) and decide at the planning stage how to establish baseline indicators and measure performance. Gather as much data as possible. Record the number of retweets and favourites, and the potential reach of your most successful Twitter messages. Gather Altmetric.com scores for scholarly articles you’re promoting. Collect page views and site visits and downloads and followers, and any other metric you can find. Mine voraciously for data — numbers are critical for communicating value to your stakeholders. For some tips on what to collect, read Carly’s post on social media metrics.

5. Learn and plan again

Every promotion is a chance to discover what works, what doesn’t, who your champions are, and how to run a future campaign more efficiently. Experiment with social media tools, and consider how to use them in future promotions. While the fundamentals of establishing and assessing your goals will remain constant for all your social media campaigns, the methods for achieving and measuring success will continually change.

Take-away Messages

To summarize, the use of social media can be a powerful means of knowledge dissemination. Have a purpose, be strategic, collaborate, learn from your efforts & share what you’ve learned with others.

A special thanks to Robin Featherstone, @rmfeatherstone Research Librarian at the Alberta Centre for Health Evidence and Social Media Team Member/Research Librarian for TREKK for her contributions to this post.

About the author

Leah Crockett is a doctoral student in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba.