Analysis of the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress Twitter Hashtags and Its Impact on Online Engagement and Attendance Rates : The Era of Health Care Social Media

Abstract

Background: Twitter at conferences facilitates remote interaction and spread of ideas. Through the use of hashtags, conference information can be gathered, referenced, disseminated, and discussed in 1 electronic location by attendees and nonattendees from remote locations. The aim of this study is to analyze the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress (ACSCC) Twitter hashtag activities and evaluate its impact on meeting participation and engagement for the last 5 annual meetings.

Methods: Twitter hashtags #ACSCC15, #ACSCC16, #ACSCC17, #ACSCC18, and #ACSCC19 were studied to determine tweets, retweets, users, and impressions. Data regarding top influencers and the most tweeted links were analyzed. Symplur Signals, a software that specializes in hashtags, was utilized for the analyses.

Results: Between 2015 and 2017, there was a consistent increase in tweets from 12 800 to 18 300 to 24 700, respectively. However, in 2018 and 2019, tweets dropped significantly to 19 700 and 19 300, respectively (P < .05). Additionally, impressions dropped significantly by 24 million impressions from 2017 to 2019 (115.1M to 91.1M, P < .05) despite the growth of users from 2700 in 2015 to 4100 in 2016 and ~6500 in 2017-2019. This change occurred despite no change in meeting attendance rates, regardless of specialty (P > .05). The most influential organizations in hashtag use were the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and Association of Women Surgeons (AWS).

Conclusion: Despite the significant reduction in views and online engagement activities in the past 2 years, the use of Twitter at the ACS CC has greatly increased the potential dissemination of information but not meeting attendance rates.

Keywords: American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress; health care hashtags; social media engagement; twitter.