ACS influence spreads via Twitter

The American College of Surgeons (ACS) continues to gain influence on Twitter, the microblogging service, which ranks among the top 10 most visited websites on the Internet. Now six years old, Twitter provides users with the ability to post and read messages, or “tweets,” of up to 140 characters. Since last year’s Clinical Congress, the College has gained more than 2,500 followers, bringing its total number of followers to nearly 5,400. Although influence is not measured by number of followers alone, these data demonstrate increased opportunities to reach more ACS constituents via the microblogging service.

The ACS is using Twitter more frequently, and according to one popular analytics tool, the College is now in the 95th percentile of all scored users of the networks measured. Another tool places the College in the 89th percentile. Both instruments indicate that the College is influential in about 20 subject areas, the top three being surgery, health care, and physicians. One report indicates that tweets from the College are concentrated on surgery and have a focused, highly engaged audience. In addition, nearly a dozen new followers are added each day.

Go to twitter.com/amcollsurgeons to follow the ACS on Twitter. You will notice that we have already begun celebrating our upcoming centennial via the #ACS100 hashtag. In addition, we have begun using #ACSCC12 for tweets about the 2012 Clinical Congress, September 30 to October 4, in Chicago, IL.
Also, be sure to check out the College’s social media sites (see below).

If you have accounts on both Facebook and Twitter, you’ll want to “Like” and “Follow” these sites, as the College posts different content on the sites.

Any feedback ACS members can provide regarding their use of ACS social media tools will help us continue to provide useful, relevant information, so be sure to let us know what’s on your mind. You can contact us via any of the sites above or by sending an e-mail to socialmedia@facs.org.