One Way to Obtain Good HIMSS Conference-related Information via Twitter

Each year, more and more people and companies are sharing their health information technology conference-related insight, experiences, facts and opinions before, during and after the event. Whether you're able to attend the 2017 HIMSS Conference or not, following along virtually via industry newsfeeds, LinkedIn Group discussions, and social media platforms like Twitter can be a good way to maximize the informational value of the conference.

For the past five years, I've been curating, creating and sharing HIMSS-related conference 'content' via my primary Twitter account known as @ShimCode, accounts like @HIMSS12, @HIMSS13 & @HIMSS14 and also  @HITConfGuy - a "health information technology conference-only" companion account to this blog.

For 2017, I expect I'll be using a combination of the above three approaches to share with my followers.

Why Follow @HITConfGuy?

Quite simply, to get 'good' HIMSS conference-related content without having to sift through all the advertisements, spam, stale and repetitious tweets. 

Note: The official HIMSS hashtag for the 2017 HIMSS Conference is #HIMSS17 and I'm already seeing an increase in the amount of spam, and what I think many would agree are useless tweets, containing the #HIMSS17 hashtag. 

What this Account Will Do

1. Only share information related to the HIMSS conference and relevant healthcare IT topics. With some occasional deviation, the focus will be on sharing information about the following topics

#ACO – Accountable Care Organizations and programs in bundled payment, episodes of care-shared savings, and growing participant base

#consumerism - improving member’s overall well-being – medical, social, financial, and environmental

#cybersecurity - protecting the privacy and security of consumer information

#digitalhealth – digital health and connected health

#mhealth – mobile health for improving disease management, member engagement, and data collection/distribution

#pharmacy –pharma costs vs benefits to quality of care and total medical costs

#telemedicine – telehealth and telemedicine for acute and chronic care needs

#interoperability - interoperability and integration topics

2. Monitor alternative sources of information other than Twitter such as blogs, news releases to health industry media sources, content made available to me by followers, and various search mechanisms I've developed over the years.

3. Accept good information and content from others and share it out. Send info to shimcode@gmail.com.

4. Include links to supplemental content and resources associated with certain tweets.

5. Share select vendor info (whitepapers, surveys, content, offers, etc) that are not clearly a sales pitches. Veiled sales pitches may be passed along at my discretion.

6. Verify that all embedded links and embedded content can be accessed, warn about need to login to access content, and other practical considerations.

7. Spare you the excess of the “over-tweeters”

8. Share select info on "booth-bling," tweet-ups, parties and contests.

9. Keep an eye out for the off-beat, intriguing and humorous - and the edgy stuff you'll rarely see others share. 

What This Account Won't Do

1. Overuse the #HIMSS17 hash tag

The #HIMSS17 tag is already being used by spammers and way over-used by certain people who should really know better. This account will strive for judicious use of the #HIMSS17 tag.

2. Share the same tweet more than once. 

Except for periodic “public service tweets” calling attention to administrative, logistical and general information itemsal service this account provides.

3. Like and re-tweet every tweet mentioning this account.

4. Repeat the same tweet over and over and over and over and over

Good #HIMSS17 Information - Before, During & After 

So if you're planning on attending the HIMSS Conference in Orlando or want to follow along virtually, be sure to follow @HitConfGuy on Twitter and consider subscribing to this blog.

Tips for Sharing Content at the 2016 HIMSS Conference

Here are some ideas and tips about making the information you share on Twitter more easily identified, consumed and shared with others.

Share Well – It’s Going to Be Around Forever

1. “Understand what you share because you can’t pull it back”

It’s ok to call out the value of what you share, add an opinion and/or point out possible contradictions – don’t be shy! Just remember that what you post on Twitter does not go away - even if you delete it.

2. Integrate hashtags into your tweet – if it makes sense
By integrating hashtag(s) into your tweet sentence on a contextualized basis, it may read better and you will also save space; therefore you can include more info.

Ex "2016 HIMSS Value of Health IT Survey: 6 Trends to Know" http://ow.ly/WXAXe

could be...

"2016 HIMSS Value of #HealthIT Survey: 6 #Trends to Know" http://ow.ly/WXAXe

Tidy Up Your Tweet Before You Share It

3. Cover your tracks!

You may want to remove tracking tags and keys from the URL’s you share – especially if any personal information like your email address is embedded in the URL.

For instance, instead of this:

http://www.business2community.com/strategy/6-clever-nudges-build-culture-experimentation-01421096?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+B2CMarketingInsider+%28Business+2+Community%29#7yzvCYuX4TILO0Jz.97

Use this:

http://www.business2community.com/strategy/6-clever-nudges-build-culture-experimentation-01421096

4. Leave room for others to RT and share your information

Keep your tweets to about 110-120 characters so it can be RT’d by others without them having to edit your tweet. Be concise. Remove unnecessary words like “the” “a” “is” “are” – and use a link shortener; which is typically built in to most tools nowadays

5. Validate links before posting them

At a bare minimum, click on links you intend to share and make sure they lead to something – even if it’s not the content you think it is! There’s nothing worse than a “404 – Page Not Found” error! :)

Point People in the Right Direction

6. If a link leads to a site that controls access to the content, inform user of the need to login to access the content. 

Add “[Login Reqd]” to the Tweet.

7. Identify special digital media formats at the end of the tweet

– Is it video? A huge document? A Podcast? Consider calling it out by adding [Video] or [Large File] etc.

8. When sharing a large media source, point to specific locations within the document, video, or podcast that you want to call out.

Ex. “See pg 18-22” or “See 3rd paragraph” or “Starts at 1:35”

Tag It!

9. Use hashtag(s) to help categorize your content and make it easy to find.

Hashtags are also used by certain web services to summarize and index tweets – making your content more likely to be read. But don’t use too many hashtags!

Example: "#Free #today #icd10 #testing #tips for #payers and #providers”

10. Don’t use punctuation or special characters within a hashtag.

Using “#ICD-10” results in a hashtag of “#ICD”

11. You can use a question mark or exclamation point as the last character in a Tweet as it will be ignored. The following are all acceptable:

“#ICD10?” results in a hashtag of “#ICD10”

“#healthit’s a great space to work in” results in a hashtag of “#healthit”

“I love #HIMSS16!” results in a hashtag of “#HIMSS16”

By incorporating some or all of the above tips and approaches into your Twitter shares, you’ll make it easy on your readers and improve the value of the information shared. For more information on healthcare technology and conferences, consider following @HITConfGuy. You may also want to follow @ShimCode for information on healthcare data, technology and services.