Social Media to Promote Evidence in Pediatric Emergency Medicine: Assessment of a Knowledge Dissemination Strategy

Introduction: Translating Emergency Knowledge for Kids (TREKK) was established to address a knowledge-to-practice gap in the emergency care of children. An Evidence Repository (guidelines, Cochrane systematic reviews, key studies) and Bottom Line Recommendations (diagnosis and treatment guidance) were developed based on stakeholder feedback. In this study, we used blogs and Twitter to promote selected Cochrane Summaries, TREKK Evidence Repository and Bottom Line Recommendations. Methods: We selected and reproduced 12 Cochrane summaries using a blogging module on the TREKK website. Key points from the summaries were shared via Twitter messages containing hyperlinks to blog posts, topic areas in the Evidence Repository, Bottom Line Recommendations, and Cochrane Summaries or systematic reviews. We published 1 blog post and 21 Twitter messages per week for 12 weeks and collected related Twitter, web page and link analytics. Alternative social media metrics (altmetrics) for promoted Cochrane systematic reviews were tracked. Results: The TREKK Twitter account gained 69 new followers (15.3% increase), and its messages were re-tweeted 125 times. Fifty-eight traceable URLs in the Twitter messages were clicked 600 times. The 12 blog posts received 6428 page visits, 8 Bottom Line Recommendations were accessed 566 times, and 8 topic areas in the Evidence Repository were visited 2299 times. On average, the altmetrics' scores of Cochrane systematic reviews increased by an average of 10 points (46.2%). Discussion: The social media campaign grew TREKK's online followers and directed web traffic to trekk.ca. Quantitative evidence collected from a variety of web analytics support blogging and tweeting as effective knowledge dissemination strategies.