symplur

That Went Well, #dayofdiabetes Edition

/ Christopher / Leave a comment

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?

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An Eventful Week

/ Christopher / 7 Comments

I’ve spent the better part of last winter and all of this year trying to figure out what it is I want to do. I have all of these side projects and blogs and advocacy efforts, but turning those more-or-less hobbies into any kind of reasonable income is, and has been a challenge. After a gaggle of resumes and inquiries into possible opportunities, my luck finally took a turn last week with not one but two different interviews – on the same day.

The next day I had two offers.

And by the weekend I had written two different announcement posts for my new employers.

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My Latest Symplur Post is About #hcsm

/ Christopher / Leave a comment

While the 117,637 cumulative users, 1,366 participants with more than 100 tweets, and representation in 217 countries is fantastic #hcsm participation data, I think 20 is the most impressive number. At least 20 different tweet chat communities exist, in part, because someone participated in a #hcsm chat and wanted to do more for their community. Of course this says nothing of the non-profit organizations, outreach and advocacy programs, and other patient-generated initiatives that owe some form of thanks to the #hcsm community for planting or cultivating an idea into action. This shouldn’t discount or discredit the amazing accomplishments of the other patient communities and their respective tweet chats. But I think it’s clear that #hcsm is more than just a hashtag, it’s a social movement.

This month I wrote about “The Influence and Impact of #hcsm” for Symplur. If you like data, you should go read this.

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Here’s a Thing I Wrote for Symplur

/ Christopher / Leave a comment

This one looks at how different patient communities approach the new year, to what extent goals and resolutions are shared, and what makes for an open conversation among these communities.

Here’s a snippet.

While the how much question is worth considering as you engage this data, I think it’s equally important to look at the how. How were these communities prompted to engage with the topic of goals and resolutions? How well did those prompts foster a conversation among their respective communities? How might we evaluate the different approaches to this topic and find the optimal way to encourage goal setting and sharing?

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Patient Community Advocate at Symplur

/ Christopher / 2 Comments

Today marks my first official day as Patient Community Advocate at Symplur. This means I get to look at all kinds of data collected by Symplur’s extensive tools and figure out ways to bring the patient communities into these data-based conversations. This means I get to venture out into the scary world of freelancing with a mighty first step. This means I get to take on new projects that could help impact and shape the future of online disease communities. This means I have a chance to truly contribute to something – to one day look back and say “I built that”.

It also means I get to write blog posts using data provided by their reporting tool, Symplur Signals, like this one about World Diabetes Day and the #wddchat14 hashtag. And I get to create fun animated gifs like this one

Created by me, via symplur.com (linked)

Created by me, via symplur.com (linked)

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