Social Media and Scientific Meetings: An Analysis of Twitter Use at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Neuroradiology

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Fig.
Average number of tweets per day and total number of microbloggers for the duration of conferences at some most recent societal conferences in radiology. The difference in the number of tweets or microbloggers among different radiology societal meetings is at least in part related to the difference in the number of attendees. Of note, some of the tweets related to each meeting were posted by microbloggers who were not attending the venue. ASNR14 indicates American Society of Neuroradiology, May 17–22, 2014, Montréal, Quebec, Canada; AUR14, Association of University Radiologists, April 1–4, 2014, Baltimore, Maryland; ISMRM14, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, May 10–16, 2014, Milan, Italy; ECR2014, European Congress of Radiology, March 6–10, 2014, Vienna, Austria; RSNA13, Radiological Society of North America, November 30–December 5, 2013, Chicago, Illinois. Data were obtained from Symplur.com.

Table 1:

Analysis of microbloggers posting tweets with #ASNR14 hashtag during May 7–22, 2014

Microblogger Category	No. (% of All Microbloggers)
Radiologist	20 (37.0%)
Vendors	11 (20.1%)
Radiology/imaging departments	7 (13%)
Other physicians/postdoctoral researchers	5 (9.3%)
Social media professionals	4 (7.4%)
Radiology journals	3 (5.6%)
Technologists	1 (1.9%)
Nurses	1 (1.9%)
Host city	1 (1.9%)
Unidentifiable	1 (1.9%)
Total	54

Table 2:

Analysis of content for tweets with #ASNR14 hashtag posted during May 7–22, 2014

Content Category	Total No. (% of Total Tweets)	Original Posts (% of Total Original Tweets)	Reposts (% of Original Posts in That Category)
Commentary on sessions	202 (49%)	124 (60.5%)	78 (38.6%)
Social posts	176 (42.9%)	92 (44%)	84 (47.7%)
Use of social media	76 (18.5%)	33 (16.1%)	43 (56.6%)
Tweet-up arrangement	61 (14.8%)	33 (16.1%)	28 (45.9%)
Participant status update	39 (9.5%)	26 (12.7%)	13 (33.3%)
Journal promotion	10 (2,4%)	5 (2,4%)	5 (50%)
Vendor marketing	9 (2.2%)	8 (3.9%)	1 (11.1%)
Meeting announcement	6 (1.5%)	3 (1.5%)	3 (50%)
Meeting logistics	1 (<1%)	1 (<1%)	0
Others	6 (1.5%)	5 (2.4%)	1 (16.7%)
Total	410 (100%)	238 (58%)	172 (42%)