Using Social Media to Enhance Research

Jul 15, 2015 | Suzanne Ferguson | @suzannerferguson

With millions of people using social media today, information and news can spread within an instant. Social media is also a great way for people to stay connected or to find others with similar interests or hobbies.

We know just how important social media can be for our work on HLHS, and we are always looking for new ways to improve. Last week three members of our HLHS Social Media Team attended a social media conference in San Francisco to better understand how to use social media in the research field. While social media is extremely useful in allowing people to communicate with each other, using it in the research field is a bit trickier. Creating 140 character tweets on the current and future state of stem cell research can easily become complicated with such a restricted space. Waiting for a research paper to be published before a blog post can be posted can seem like forever and finding unique pictures to enhance the social media post can seem like a daunting task.

Nevertheless, we are committed to informing the CHD community on the work we are doing here at the Todd and Karen Wanek Family Program for Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. And, as we continue to improve, we are also using new tools to communicate our message. Stay tuned for our new HLHS Facebook page.

In case you missed our pictures on Twitter, here we are at the conference.

The Todd and Karen Wanek Family Program for Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) is a collaborative network of specialists bonded by the vision of delaying or preventing heart failure for individuals affected by congenital heart defects including HLHS. The specialized team is addressing the various aspects of these defects by using research and clinical strategies ranging from basic science to diagnostic imaging to regenerative therapies.