Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Effective use of social media is central to the UK Cochrane Centre’s new focus on engagement. Social media platforms offer ways to communicate with all our stakeholders, such as patients, policymakers and health professionals, about evidence-based health care and Cochrane Reviews in particular, and about our activities.
Objectives: To engage effectively with all our stakeholders and with others outside the UK, through social media.
Methods: Since September 2012 we have become active on Twitter and Facebook and have a new, regularly-updated website. We have a blog, Evidently Cochrane, where we write lay-friendly summaries of reviews, setting them in context and giving key results and a comment on the quality of the evidence. We have established monthly meetings to review the next issue of the Cochrane Library and discuss with a team of clinicians the potential impact of the reviews and how we might best disseminate them. We are now going out to our UK-based Cochrane Review Groups to offer training and support in using social media to promote their reviews and activities.
Results: Twitter is our most active social media channel; we are sending tweets about Cochrane Reviews daily, both through planned tweets and responding to health topics under discussion, which often results in conversation about reviews. We have used Twitter and Storify to increase our participation in conferences and capture these events. We are blogging at least weekly and these are generating comments and interest. We disseminate around forty Cochrane Reviews each month across several social media platforms.
Conclusions: Since starting to use social media in these ways we have seen a growing following across these platforms. We are now in conversation with a vast network of people about Cochrane Reviews and related topics and can direct people to evidence that is timely and relevant. Engagement in action!
Objectives: To engage effectively with all our stakeholders and with others outside the UK, through social media.
Methods: Since September 2012 we have become active on Twitter and Facebook and have a new, regularly-updated website. We have a blog, Evidently Cochrane, where we write lay-friendly summaries of reviews, setting them in context and giving key results and a comment on the quality of the evidence. We have established monthly meetings to review the next issue of the Cochrane Library and discuss with a team of clinicians the potential impact of the reviews and how we might best disseminate them. We are now going out to our UK-based Cochrane Review Groups to offer training and support in using social media to promote their reviews and activities.
Results: Twitter is our most active social media channel; we are sending tweets about Cochrane Reviews daily, both through planned tweets and responding to health topics under discussion, which often results in conversation about reviews. We have used Twitter and Storify to increase our participation in conferences and capture these events. We are blogging at least weekly and these are generating comments and interest. We disseminate around forty Cochrane Reviews each month across several social media platforms.
Conclusions: Since starting to use social media in these ways we have seen a growing following across these platforms. We are now in conversation with a vast network of people about Cochrane Reviews and related topics and can direct people to evidence that is timely and relevant. Engagement in action!