Twitter tweets and twaddle: twittering at AHPA’s National Health Promotion Conference
George Anderson A , Suzanne Gleeson A C , Chris Rissel B , Li Ming Wen A and Karen Bedford AA Health Promotion Service, Sydney Local Health District, King George V Building Missenden Road, Camperdown, NSW 2050, Australia.
B School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Level 6, Charles Perkins Centre (D17), University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
C Corresponding author. Email: sglee@email.cs.nsw.gov.au
Health Promotion Journal of Australia 25(2) 143-146 https://doi.org/10.1071/HE13112
Submitted: 20 December 2013 Accepted: 9 June 2014 Published: 9 September 2014
Abstract
Issue addressed: This paper explored the first-time use of Twitter by the Australian Health Promotion Association (AHPA) at its 2013 National Health Promotion Conference.
Methods: The @AHPA_AU Twitter account and #AHPA2013 hashtag were established and included in the conference program. Attendees were encouraged throughout the conference to use it. A total of 748 tweets were captured under the hashtag #AHPA2013 in chronological order from 16–19 June 2013. Tweets with photos and more than one hashtag were recorded. A thematic analysis of tweets was conducted.
Results: Thirteen broad themes were identified, with each of the 748 tweets allocated to one of the themes. Tweets about keynote sessions made up 38% of all tweets, followed by 14% for concurrent sessions. A photo was included in 11% of tweets, and 25% were sent to more than one hashtag. There were 96 tweeters; 75% of them posted five or less tweets and ~9%, including a professional blogger, posted greater than 20 tweets. At the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander pre-conference workshop there was a relatively high level of Twitter engagement.
Conclusion: Twitter could potentially be useful for promoting conference content and activities, but what it adds in value to a health promotion conference cannot be determined by this study.
So what?: This paper highlights the engagement of tweeters with conference content and activities and suggests that tweeting benefited from the engagement of a professional health blogger.
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