A Little Birdie Told MeWhat the H1N1 Outbreak Taught

Us About Using Twitter

Tonya Oaks Smith13 June 2011

Let’s get it started… and get the worm

Who am I and why do you care?

Who are you? I do care

What are we talking about today?

@marleysmom @ a glance

Director of Communications at the UALR William H. Bowen School of Law

Co-chair for #hewebAR

Co-chair of the HighEdWeb regional support committee

Earned master’s degree in applied communication studies in 2010

About.me/marleysmom

Who are you?

On the agenda today

Background

Theory

Research

Results

Application

The background

Why Twitter? Presence is more and more

prevalent – use in Iran, Hudson River crash, H1N1

65 MM Tweets per day from millions of users

Why H1N1? Health catastrophe that was

anticipated Other communication vehicles

used in preparation for outbreak

Right place, right time

The theory

Diffusion of Innovation Ev Rogers – communication

researcher and supreme networker

The way a new idea is shared through both interpersonal channels and mass media

Begun as way to chart spread of information about and adoption of crop innovations in Iowa

Now theory is used as way to share health information on a broad scale – HIV, malaria, STDs

The theory

The research

Over 300,000 tweets used one of three terms (H1N1, swineflu or swine flu) during the height of the outbreak – spring to fall 2009

Isolated tweets for three key dates in the outbreak – April 25, Sept. 4, Oct. 24, 2009 = 15,000 tweets

Detailed reading of 5,000 tweets for content analysis

Later survey of Twitter users for in-depth information about follow-through on vaccinations

The results

Content analysis – three themes: Information-seeking behaviors Misinformation Uncertainty reduction

The results

Survey of the users: How often do individuals

pass along information? How do they choose what

information to pass along? How do they verify the truth

of the information they see? How does the information

they see on Twitter impact their decisions?

What’s different now?

Today, people expect to share information, not be fed it. They expect to be listened to when they have knowledge and raise questions. They want news that connects with their lives and interests. They want control over their information. And they want connection – they give their trust to those they engage with – people who talk with them, listen and maintain a relationship.

– Michael SkolerMedia scholar

Influence means what?

Per Twitter: Indegree influence Retweet influence Mention influence

Popular users who have high indegree are not necessarily influential in terms of spawning retweets or mentions. Most influential users can hold significant influence over a variety of topics. Influence is not gained spontaneously or accidentally, but through concerted effort.

- Cha, Haddadi, Benevenuto, Gummadi, 2010

The application

No, seriously…

Don’t: Share information unworthy of

your followers Ignore followers’ legitimate

concerns Waste time sharing useless

information Ignore misinformation Spread information you can’t

confirm Abuse your followers’ trust Use Twitter without pondering the

ramifications

And even more seriously…

Do: Accept the importance of the medium

both as an interpersonal channel and mass medium

Build relationships before emergencies and crises happen

Share salient information Harness power of network Encourage questioning Call attention to misinformation Fill the information vacuum Reduce uncertainty Verify your own information

So what did we learn?

Twitter is an important new-ish medium (still NEW to those not in the know (bosses, presidents, chancellors ;) ))

Twitter can be used for good and evil

Our followers trust us as change agents and opinion leaders – scary!

Twitter can’t be the only medium we use to communicate information – it is part of a toolkit.

Questions?

tosmith@ualr.edu

@marleysmom

501.324.9896

Complete research is on issuu.com/marleysmom

OR… @robin2go can usually find me ;)