Tweet me: conferencing in the era of COVID-19 and 280 characters

Abstract

The European Renal Association – European Dialysis and Transplant Association (ERA-EDTA) Social Media (SoMe) Team provides Twitter coverage of the annual congress. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, #ERAEDTA20 was the first major Nephrology congress to be delivered virtually. The effect of The SoMe Team and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have not been explored previously. Tweets of the ERA-EDTA congresses 2016–20, using official hashtags, were evaluated. Metadata of each tweet were collected prospectively; original tweets, retweets and evidence-based tweets were identified. The gender of tweet author and location of Twitter activity were established. Network maps were created to ascertain the degree of polarization between the 2019 and 2020 Twitter activity, using Gephi 0.9.2.

Between 2016 and 2019, the total number of tweets and the number of tweet authors increased, as did the proportion of female authors (20% versus 27%). In 2019, there were fewer multimedia and evidence-based tweets: 8% versus 20% in 2016. Globally, there were fewer Nephrology conferences in 2020 and the number of tweets per day reduced by 53% from 2019. In 2020, The ERA-EDTA congress saw an increase in authors of 9% and only an 8% reduction in tweets. It was easier to disseminate information in 2020, measured by increased correlation coefficient (0.14 versus 0.12 in 2019). A higher proportion of countries was represented (n = 55 versus n = 48 in 2019) and a higher proportion of tweets came from women. In conclusion, the introduction of SoMe Team was associated with increased usage of Twitter and ease of information dissemination. Compared with #nephtwitter activity as a whole in 2020, SoMe Team has mitigated some of the pandemic's deleterious effects in scientific dissemination, relevant to Nephrology.