Live tweeting

A Social Media Perspective of AAFS 2016

Posted on by Greg Emmerich

The American Academy of Forensic Sciences’ 68th annual conference took place in Las Vegas February 22–27th, and those of you who did not attend, like me, had to live vicariously through the social media posts of those who did. The question on everyone’s mind: Who was up five hundy by midnight?

Vegas-baby-Vegas

Okay, okay, most people who went to AAFS went for scientific purposes, and in fact, @andycyim was the only one to post a tribute to Swingers with a #vegasbaby tweet. Tip of the hat to you, Andy. So what did the Twitterverse look like during the week of the conference? I analyzed nearly 600 tweets and found some interesting patterns of how scientists interact on social media during a conference. More on my methodology is at the end of this article.

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Can’t Go to A Conference? Try Following the #Hashtag

Posted on by Michele Arduengo
Members of an audience at a scientific conference may tweet what they hear or see, and because these messages are free and open, it has the potential to reach anyone, anywhere in the world. This has profound implications for the communication of science, enabling discovery, discussion, teaching, and learning outside of the confines of the conference itself. Image credit for globe: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Flickr. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003789.g001
Members of an audience at a scientific conference may tweet what they hear or see, and because these messages are free and open, it has the potential to reach anyone, anywhere in the world.
This has profound implications for the communication of science, enabling discovery, discussion, teaching, and learning outside of the confines of the conference itself. Image credit for globe: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Flickr.
doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003789.g001

AAAS included a session on social media at the 2015 annual meeting. The #AACR15 stream was so busy, by the time I finished reading a tweet that piqued my interest, it had almost scrolled off the bottom of my feed–a bit like an agarose gel that was running too fast. Scientists are connecting with other scientists on forums like reddit to discuss cloning strategies and transfection issues, and the Global Biological Standards Institute (GBSI) is running a huge campaign to educate life scientists about cell line authentication (#authenticate) through social media.

Social media have decidedly entered the science mainstream with attendees at meetings posting to twitter and Facebook from their Instagram accounts, societies setting up multiple hastags for meetings and popular sessions, and journals tracking not  just the “old-fashioned” Impact Factor, but rather social media shares, comments, retweets and likes of articles. Increasingly social media are the impact factors in science communication.

Live tweeting at meetings is rapidly becoming a way that hot topics are being disseminated far beyond the limited reach of the presentation room at the conference center, and PLOS One recently published an article by Ekins and Perlstein that provides guidance to meeting organizers and attendees for live tweeting events. The article talks about what a hashtag is and how it is used. It is great for novices or experienced social media users who might have missed that one particular twitter abbreviation, but the authors go beyond the technical aspects of tweeting to discuss the promise and potential of reaching a global audience with the leading edge science that is presented at scientific conferences and the richness that can be gained by bringing more people into the discussion.

Have you ever “live tweeted” a talk or event or followed a live tweet stream? Do you have a favorite  scientist “live tweeter” that you follow? Let us know in the comment section below. How are you, as a scientist, using social media?