APMA News - May/June 2018 - 16

The Importance of Social Media Adoption in Podiatry

continued from page 15

Some ways to increase awareness and use of social
media at podiatry meetings include:
Organizations should provide obvious links to their
social media accounts on their websites and promote them there.
Organizations hosting major meetings should pro
promote
the next year's meeting hashtag year-round once the preceding year's conference concludes.
Organizations hosting major meetings should offer an
event mobile app with social media integrated into the
app (e.g., Twitter feed).
Foot and ankle meetings should continue to provide
(and expand) social media lectures and workshops.
◆ In 2014 and 2015, the American Society of Breast
Surgeons Annual Meeting had a five-minute "Twitter
101" presentation at the beginning of the general session, and formal social media lectures were given at
pre-meeting courses and breakfast workshops.7
◆ At the 2015 APMA Annual Scientific Meeting, there
were two social media sessions: "Social Media 101"
and "Advanced Social Media" (non-CECH). APMA
has repeated those sessions each year since.
Organizations hosting meetings should recruit physicians who have a recognizable name and established
professional following to tweet during the conference.
Our professional organizations should increase promotion of social media at a conference. Examples include:
◆ consistently displaying the recognized conference
hashtag on slideshows between lectures or media
around the event space;7
◆ broadcasting real-time displays of the Twitter feed
and/or hashtag use around the conference center;
◆ including Twitter usernames on conference badges;
◆ offering moderated Twitter Q&A sessions (questions taken via Twitter from both attendees and
non-attendees);
◆ conducting live surveys via social media during
educational, abstract, industry-supported, and poster sessions;
◆ enlisting conference volunteers to "tweet the meeting;"7 and

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7. Deanna Attai, Diane Radford, Michael Cowher, "Tweeting the
meeting: Twitter use at the American Society of Breast Surgeons
annual meeting 2013-2016," Annals of Surgical Oncology 23 (2016):
3418-3422.
16 APMA News May/June 2018

◆ providing a sign for attendee "selfies" that includes

the conference hashtag.

What Does It All Mean for APMA Members?
We encourage you to develop a professional presence on
social media if you have not already. The more members communicate via social media and attract followers within and
outside the health-care profession, the better we can educate
the public and other providers about podiatry.
One of the many reasons this concept is important is because of the current drive to promote awareness of the profession and recruit a large, high-quality pool of student applicants.
It's critical that both our professional organizations and our individual members understand and actively participate in social
media to advance our profession.
A challenge for some new users as they attempt to develop a
social media presence is curating content. We recommend the
following sources of content:
General information about the profession (e.g., What is a
podiatrist? Why should someone see a podiatrist? What
are some pathologies a podiatrist treats? Answering these
questions alone could inspire hundreds of posts.)
Reposted or retweeted content from APMA, your state
association, or other professional societies.
Your personal (positive) reﬂections about your career
and the value of podiatric medicine and surgery.

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Don't forget to include relevant tags, hashtags, usernames,
and links to ensure you are integrating your social media platforms and building exposure.

TABLE 3
Foot and Ankle Annual Conference
Hashtag Use, 2010-2016
Year

Tweets-
ACFAS

Tweets-
APMA

Tweets-
AOFAS

2010

n/a

2011

n/a

2012

n/a

2013

2014

2015

2016

135

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of APMA News - May/June 2018