Engaging Scientists to Use Twitter As a Communication Tool to Advance Next-Generation Cancer Technologies

Background:  Social media is most effective when the content relates to a particular interest or group of people. Scientists in a variety of disciplines can use various social media platforms to exchange scientific knowledge, stay- up-to date on new funding opportunities, and/or discover new research trends. Despite the professional benefits associated with social media use, relatively few scientists currently use these tools. Misunderstandings of the disadvantages of social media can be corrected by providing a clearer understanding on how scientists can benefit from social media. 

Program background:  The National Cancer Institute Small Business Innovation Research Development Center (NCI SBIR) Twitter handle, @NCISBIR, aims to reach scientists and small businesses, in an interactive way, by providing information that stimulates technological innovation, increases participation of small businesses, and informs existing awardees — as well as investors— on new opportunities offered by NCI SBIR. In 2016, SBIR continue to expand their social media presence through several activities including posting tweets with visuals and sharing live Twitter videos covering external events in effort to increase reach to scientists, minority and underrepresented small business groups. 

Evaluation Methods and Results:  This session will describe how NCI SBIR developed practical and low-cost methods to implement live Twitter videos and other social media tactics to highlight resources which would assist scientists towards making an impact in next-generation cancer technologies. The methods will outline promotion strategy, partnership outreach, and production summary involved in producing live Twitter videos and other NCI SBIR social media activities. Participants will learn about the various metrics increased throughout 2016. During 2016, overall increases are in the range of 45% in engagement rate, 27% in the number of followers and 1044 visits to the NCI SBIR website compared to 2015. Scientists preferred tweets with visuals compared to tweets without visuals showing metrics more than doubled in impressions, retweets and total engagements metrics. NCI SBIR averaged 2,777 impressions, 65 media views, and 33 in total engagement for a series of live Twitter videos.

Conclusions:  Our results demonstrate that while social media has yet to be widely adopted, scientists are beginning to understand the value of using social media, specifically with Twitter, to exchange scientific knowledge and learn more about funding opportunities through organizations like NCI SBIR. Through Twitter, NCI SBIR has used the platform as an opportunity for scientists who are unable to attend external events or speak with staff in-person the chance to still stay connected to find resources needed to advancer cancer technology. 

Implications for research and/or practice:  The session will address the lessons learned and explore new approaches to improve the experience and engagement among the scientific community which can be easily applied to other scientific organizations or groups.