#hcsmca’s 18-month Report Card
It’s been a while coming, but it makes me no less proud to present to you #hcsmca’s 18-month report card. A big thank you to Alaina Cyr (@AlainaBCyr) for creating the beautiful infographic and to Yaser Alyounes (@YaserAlyounes) for writing the accompanying commentary below. PS: #hcsmca is 21 months old today.
Look at how far we’ve come since the inception of the Canadian chapter of the global Healthcare Social Media community. From 511 participants in December 2010 to 4,533 in March 2012, our community continues to exhibit tremendous growth both in numbers and diversity of topics and participants. (Compare to our 6-month report card.) In my opinion, this had a lot to do with the culture of the community as its been open, inviting, and supportive. This can be clearly seen in two points:
- allowing any participant to submit a topic and
- having different members moderating the chat as the standard.
I think the first point helped reel many people in as they felt their voices are heard and that they have an entire community of like-minded and at the same diverse individuals who were willing to put time aside every week to discuss those topics. The second point contributed heavily to the growth of the community as moderators reached out to their own contacts either directly by inviting them or indirectly by posting #hcsmca tweets or even just talking about the experience in casual conversation. I know I couldn’t stop talking about my experience when I first moderated a chat.
With our community continuing to grow, we would love to hear your thoughts and reflections about what you like the most.
- How has #hcsmca helped you?
- How do you think #hcsmca can be improved to have more impact?
- And finally, where do you see the community going in the next few years?
Congratulations Colleen and #hcsmca community! wish you many happy celebrations in the future!
Thank you Kathi!
So valuable to see the data presented in such an accessible and attractive way. Looking forward to drilling down into the detail Colleen.
Thank you Marie.
Reblogged this on Health Care Social Media Monitor.
Looking at the “Activity & Participation (per month)” graph, I notice that many of the peaks & dips can be related back to the tweet-ups & meet-ups. For example, the dip in number of tweets but consistent number of participants falls during August 2011, when we took a summer break from the chats. The huge spike in both participants and tweets comes in February 2012, when the Toronto group hosted and web-cast a hugely-popular event during Social Media Week.
I can’t figure out what caused the spike in participants around April 2011. Anyone have any insight there?
I’m looking forward to crunching the numbers for the 2 yr anniversary and seeing how things have been progressing since March 2012. If you want to see something else captured in the 2 year report card, do let us know!
The spike in late April – early May 2011 was due to the May 3 meetup in Toronto with Ed Bennett that we livestreamed (http://cyhealthcommunications.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/gems-from-hcsmca-meetup-with-ed-bennett-plus/).