By Anna Vecchio
With social media having such a prevalent presence today, it continues to play a significant role in connecting surgeons, prospective trainees and medical students throughout the vascular community.
The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) Social Media Committee has launched its newest initiative to keep members connected, the new monthly #SVSTweetChat series. Each month, expert panelists will share career advice, hot topics of debate, and innovations in the vascular field with the Twitter community.
Twitter continues to be a leading platform in the committee’s social media outreach efforts. The @VascularSVS Twitter account hosts more than 8,000 followers and will be the forum for the series. Since January 2021, this account has gained more than 500 new followers and has generated more than 430,000 impressions.
“The benefit of Twitter is that users can navigate in and out of the discussion at any time. Since the hashtag will be embedded on Twitter, users can access the thread during and after the chat,” said Meryl Logan, MD, chair of the Social Media Committee.
The first #SVSTweetChat debuted April 15, with a discussion of "Early Career Advice.” Brigitte Smith, MD, Ahmed Kayssi, MD, Leigh Ann O’Banion, MD, and Allan Conway, MD, shared tips for success for new vascular surgeons, pitfalls to avoid in the first years of practice, how to manage a work-life balance, as well as some financial advice.
Participants tagged colleagues and friends in the discussion, which led to increased retweets, shares and notable mentions.
The April Tweet chat received more than 16,000 impressions—the number of times a user saw #SVSTweetChat in their timeline or search results, and 840 detail expands as users expanded #SVSTweetChat threads.
Tweet chats—each with its own topic—will take place on the third Thursday of each month. To participate, log in to Twitter at the time of the chat, search #SVSTweetChat in the upper right-hand search bar and look for the latest thread of tweets. To respond and engage with the chat, include the hashtag, #SVSTweetChat, in each response. “We have received great feedback from the panelists and participants so far. We are hopeful that the #SVSTweetChat series will continue to garner a substantial amount of attention and engagement on social media,” said Logan. The next Tweet chat will kick off at 8 p.m. Central Daylight Time Thursday, May 20, with a new set of panelists to discuss “Radial Access for the Vascular Surgeon.”
With a growing community of technologically engaged vascular professionals, the possibilities for sharing interesting and timely content on social media are constantly evolving. Continue to follow the #SVSTweetChat conversation on Twitter and follow @VascularSVS.