I’m incredibly proud of the turnout #dayofdiabetes garnered yesterday. There was a lot of a lot going on, but I think the net message was well communicated – this thing we do every day, managing this disease and staying alive, is not easy. And, the diabetes online community can be quite vocal when called to action.

I haven’t had an opportunity to dedicate enough time to look at all of the metrics, but here’s what I can share after a quick glance at some Symplur data…

1. You all showed up. Big time. 2,248 tweets from 362 users. For reference, last year’s group #dayofdiabetes effort (April 10, 2014) generated 1,495 tweets from 275 users.
2. Compared to last year, total impressions more than doubled. From 2,600,626 in 2014 to 5,349,262 yesterday.
3. It should be noted that total #dayofdiabetes data received a significant bump from the #dsma chat that took place last night, thank you Cherise.

What I want to look at, for my own curiosity, and in anticipation of my upcoming AADE presentation is the overall makeup of the participants in both yesterday’s and last year’s #dayofdiabetes. How many patients shared their day? How many health care professionals engaged with and encouraged their peers to follow along? How many brands promoted the hashtag? How many brands abused the moment to promote something?

So we’re clear, I don’t see #dayofdiabetes as a race to build up impressions counts. Each one of those impressions is an educational opportunity. Each tweet that was sent was another chance for someone to realize exactly what it takes to get by. Each person who shared this hashtag is an advocate for diabetes awareness, even if they weren’t ready to assume the title. We’re all in this together, and days like yesterday show off what we can do together, as a collective diabetes community.

And that’s pretty sweet.

Image (linked) via giphy.com

Now to figure out how I’m going to get all of these tweets into Storify and shared on http://dayofdiabetes.tumblr.com…