Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

Anthony
LaFauce

Twitter Can Save Your Life Part 2

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

twitter-bird2Several years ago when I was at The Social Times I wrote a blog post about how Twitter could save your life as a multi-channel messaging tool. If you take a second to look at the comment section of that post you can see there was some back and forth about the usefulness of Twitter (@Martin Ringlein).

Why am I bringing up an article I wrote almost 3 years ago? Today Susan Kinzie wrote a great piece about how innovative developers are starting to create tools to use Twitter as a method for finding people in distress. The article talks about an online survey the Red Cross conducted that reports that more and more people are using social media as a tool to find help.

While the article wraps up by saying that in an emergency the best thing to do is dial 911, it is great to see people starting to explore the ways in which multichannel tools can help out. Imagine tying in my Foursquare, Twitter, Ping.fm and Facebook page into some sort of Geo-Targeted/911 connection tool that would tell all my followers where I was, what was wrong and how they could help.

As an avid lover of tech it is exciting to see these developments coming to fruition. Do you have any examples of folks using social media or developing social media tools to help during a disaster? Let me know.

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Brendan
Kownacki

Championing for a Good Cause

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Between tracking the latest swine flu outbreak, crunching numbers for taxes and following the latest health care reform efforts, there are a lot of things for people to spend their time thinking about...and this is all outside the burdens of our everyday lives. Especially if you have a "9 to 5" job (which more often than not probably seems like an 8 to 8 job), then your mind is probably overrun with things to think about and finding the time or mental capacity to stand up for a global cause can be daunting.

So what gets people involved in championing a good cause?

On a daily basis, more and more celebrities are becoming active in standing up for global health initiatives and using their celebrity status to drive attention, as well as recruit support and money for their chosen causes. But how are the Hollywood elite connecting themselves with everyone else to accomplish their goals? Online, of course.

In preparation for World Malaria Day on April 25, it was recently announced that the Special Envoy for Malaria at the United Nations will incorporate a social media component to their efforts for the next year and has named a special envoy of journalists, digital experts, business executives and celebrities to lead the charge to use online tools to build a following with the hopes of making a difference. The idea is that a little action every month from these public figures can yield a big impact for global health. (more...)

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Kaitlin
Doody

The Power of the #Hashtag

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

When describing Twitter hashtags to clients, we typically describe them as a method for aggregating similar content and community building. Basically, when a Twitter user tags a keyword with the hash - or pound symbol (#) - the Tweet will appear in the conversation thread on that specific topic.

In the past year and a half, many online Twitter chats have cropped up - more than 100 Twitter chat schedules are tracked here. Reminiscent of AIM chat room-style group discussions, this more refined method of group dialogue allows Twitter users to virtually meet with people throughout the Twitterverse. By tagging their posts with the same hashtag, users can follow the conversation surrounding their shared topic of interest. Most groups have a set time they meet each week and typically, a moderator will field questions and pose them to the group to ensure the dialogue continues to flow.

Chat groups are always welcoming new participants and even if you don't feel like interacting, interested individuals can simply follow along with the group's hashtag at their designated meeting time. Twitter chat groups provide a uniquely useful and efficient method for connecting, interacting and learning. Public relations and communications chat groups allow industry newcomers, seasoned experts and everyone in between to provide and share a variety of perspectives and obtain 140-character snapshots of qualitative insights. For example, @Mikinzie, a PR college student, participates in #prstudchat because she values this weekly time to network with "awesome PR pros who are always willing to talk/ help." (more...)

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Erin
Turner

My E-Patient Twitter Success Story

Friday, February 26th, 2010

When I arrived at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota a few weeks ago, I was asked: "Who referred you to us?" My answer was not traditional: "Twitter."

For the past five years, I've suffered with pain in my right wrist on a daily basis, despite regular treatment from an orthopedic surgeon. I was diagnosed with an LT ligament tear and told that my only surgical option was a partial fusion of my wrist - a treatment he did not yet recommend and I was unable to accept as a solution. At the time, I remember having a conversation with my father: "You hear about these ballplayers tearing things and coming back to play the next season," he said. "It seems like there should be a better solution than that." (more...)

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Kaitlin
Doody

The Health Tweeder: Aggregating Health-Related Twitter Content

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Wondering what the Twitterverse's most commonly discussed health categories are? Well, look no further because Pixels & Pills, a collaborative effort between two pharmaceutical marketing firms, has developed a free visualization tool to measure online conversations surrounding a variety of medical topics.

The Health Tweeder uses search terms, hashtags and handles pertaining to a given disease state to pool results into a feed of Twitter updates. The keywords for different health categories populate a vibrant lab of colorful petri dishes, which you can click on to reveal the most recent health-related Tweets. "Growing and shrinking based on the volume of content at any one time, each dish, and all of them combined, provide a dynamic view of dialogue in real time," said Mike Myers, president of Palio, one of the collaborating firms. (more...)

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Molly
Hippolitus

Top Digital Technology and Social Media News this Week

Friday, September 11th, 2009

google_wave_logo1. Google Makes Waves in Social Media World

This week Google announced the newest way to participate in the digital conversation: the Wave. Google Wave is a collaborative online conversation that allows multiple forms of media to be shared among the participants.  Why wait for an email or check your replies on Twitter when you can "listen" to the conversation keystroke by keystroke? With features such as real-time typing, recorded transcripts (for those recently joining the conversation), and the ability to embed the Wave on different sites for others to view and partake in, the Wave is speculated to make Tweeting and e-mailing look archaic.  Blogger, author, and social media expert Mark Senak is so fired up about the revolutionary communication tool, he goes so far as to compare it to the invention of air conditioning - something we will never be able to imagine what it was like to go without.  Read more about the revolutionary Google Wave, and also what it means for Pharma, Eye on FDA: Google Wave 3 - How Will Google Wave Communications Be Regulated - If At All? (more...)

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