title: Qualitative Twitter analysis of participants, tweet strategies, and tweet content at a major urologic conference.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The microblogging social media platform Twitter is increasingly being adopted in the urologic field. We aimed to analyze participants, tweet strategies, and tweet content of the Twitter discussion at a urologic conference.
  
  
  METHODS
  A comprehensive analysis of the Twitter activity at the European Association of Urology Congress 2013 (#eau2013) was performed, including characteristics of user profiles, engagement and popularity measurements, characteristics and timing of tweets, and content analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 218 Twitter contributors, doctors (45%) were the most frequent, ahead of associations (15%), companies (10%), and journals (3%). However, journals had the highest tweet/participant rate (22 tweets/participant), profile activity (median: 1177, total tweets, 1805 followers, 979 following), and profile popularity (follower/following ratio: 2.1; retweet rank percentile: 96%). Links in a profile were associated with higher engagement (p<0.0001) and popularity (p<0.0001). Of 1572 tweets, 57% were original tweets, 71% contained mentions, 20% contained links, and 25% included pictures. The majority of tweets (88%) were during conference hours, with an average of 24.7 tweets/hour and a peak activity of 71 tweets/hour. Overall, 59% of tweets were informative, led by the topics uro-oncology (21%), urologic research (21%), and urotechnology (12%). Limitations include the analysis of a single conference analysis, assessment of global profile and not domain-specific activity, and the rapid evolution in Twitter-using habits.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results of this single conference qualitative analysis are promising for an enrichment of the scientific discussions at urologic conferences through the use of Twitter.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, University Hospital Frankfurt, Germany;
authors.forename: Hendrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Borgmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, University Hospital Frankfurt, Germany;
authors.forename: Jan-Henning
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Woelm
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, University Hospital Luebeck, Germany;
authors.forename: Axel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Merseburger
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Armed Forces Hospital Koblenz, Germany;
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nestler
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, St Joseph Hospital, Dortmund, Germany;
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Salem
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, University Hospital Frankfurt, Germany;
authors.forename: Maximilian P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Brandt
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, University Hospital Frankfurt, Germany;
authors.forename: Axel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Haferkamp
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology and Population Health, New York University and Manhattan Veterans Affairs Medical Center, NY, U.S.A.
authors.forename: Stacy
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Loeb