Use of the microblogging service Twitter grew by at least 30% at the RSNA 2012 meeting compared to the previous year's RSNA conference, according to a new article published online in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
A research team led by Dr. Matthew Hawkins, of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, examined the number of tweets posted to RSNA's official #RSNA12 hashtag at last year's show and in 2011 when the #RSNA11 was used. They analyzed total tweets, tweets per day, activity of the most active microbloggers, and the total number of microbloggers, among other metrics (JACR, October 18, 2013).
The total number of tweets grew nearly 39%, the total number of microbloggers grew 48%, and tweets per day grew 37.4%, the group found.
| Twitter use: RSNA 2012 vs. RSNA 2011 | |||
| 2011 | 2012 | Growth | |
| Meeting-related tweets | 4,061 | 5,630 | 38.6% |
| Total No. of microbloggers | 755 | 1,116 | 48% |
| Tweets per microblogger | 4.9 | 4.9 | 0% |
| Tweets per day | 543 | 746 | 37.4% |
In other key metrics, Hawkins and colleagues found that 65% of tweeters were from North America in 2012, compared with 67% in 2011, while Europe contributed 18% in 2012 and 17% in 2011. Some 55% of tweets contained links in 2012, compared with 50% of tweets in 2011.
The authors noted that the increases were even more notable given the sharp decline in RSNA attendance in 2012 versus 2011 (52,980 attendees in 2012, compared with 59,097 attendees in 2011).
