Trending the Social Media Influence of SGS Conferences on Twitter

Author Type(s)

Student, Faculty

Document Type

Abstract

Publication Date

3-2023

DOI

10.1016/j.ajog.2022.12.167

Journal Title

American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Abstract

Objectives

This study aims to analyze the trends in the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons’ (SGS) conference hashtags and evaluate the impact each annual conference had on twitter engagement over the past 5 years.

Materials and Methods

This is a retrospective study of twitter activity metrics based on hashtags. The primary outcome is the number of tweets over time, specifically around the time of the SGS annual meeting. Secondary outcomes included tweets during conference over total tweets, percent tweets retweeted, categories of users tweeting, and top 10 influencers per year. Symplur Signals (Upland, CA) was used to extract the data. Activity metrics, tweet characteristics, and user characteristics were collected for selected hashtags from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2021. Hashtags included were #SGS2017, #SGS2018, #SGS2019, and #SGS2021, referring to each annual conference. No hashtag existed for the 2020 meeting (virtual). Influencers were determined by the number of tweets published with the hashtag. Chi squared test of difference at a significance level of p ≤ 0.05 was used to identify differences between groups.

Results

The number of tweets over time is reported in Figure 1. Total tweets were 1,778 in 2017, 826 in 2018, 1,471 in 2019, and 1,902 in 2021. There was a significant increase in tweets during the week of each annual meeting. A significant difference was found between years for the percent of total tweets published during the week of the annual conference, 77% in 2017, 72% in 2018, 64% in 2019, and 84% in 2021. The average percent of tweets retweeted was 46.8%, with no significant difference between years. In each year, users categorized as doctors published on average 55.1% of tweets, with no significant difference between years. While unknown users published on average 22.9% of tweets, the next largest groups were investigators at 12.9% and Organization Advocacy at 5.1%. All other categories contributed less than 5% of total tweets. Figure 2 presents the top 10 influencers of each annual meeting’s hashtag. Bolded users were consistent influencers at more than one annual meeting.

Conclusion

This study showed that twitter engagement increases dramatically around the SGS annual meeting. Within the week of the conference, greater than half of all tweets for the year were published. Annually, less than half of all tweets were retweeted. Most tweets were published by doctors. The top influencers showed variability from year to year, but some users were consistent influencers, including @GynSurgery, @drMtruong, and @malstumd for more than two annual meetings.

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