Showing papers on "Social media published in 2009"

Predicting tie strength with social media

Abstract: Social media treats all users the same: trusted friend or total stranger, with little or nothing in between. In reality, relationships fall everywhere along this spectrum, a topic social science has investigated for decades under the theme of tie strength. Our work bridges this gap between theory and practice. In this paper, we present a predictive model that maps social media data to tie strength. The model builds on a dataset of over 2,000 social media ties and performs quite well, distinguishing between strong and weak ties with over 85% accuracy. We complement these quantitative findings with interviews that unpack the relationships we could not predict. The paper concludes by illustrating how modeling tie strength can improve social media design elements, including privacy controls, message routing, friend introductions and information prioritization.

Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media

Abstract: Conventional wisdom about young people's use of digital technology often equates generational identity with technology identity: today's teens seem constantly plugged in to video games, social networking sites, and text messaging. Yet there is little actual research that investigates the intricate dynamics of youths' social and recreational use of digital media. Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out fills this gap, reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people are living and learning with new media in varied settings -- at home, in after-school programs, and in online spaces. Integrating twenty-three case studies -- which include Harry Potter podcasting, video-game playing, music sharing, and online romantic breakups -- in a unique collaborative authorship style, Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out is distinctive for its combination of in-depth description of specific group dynamics with conceptual analysis.

Pandemics in the Age of Twitter: Content Analysis of “Tweets” During the H1N1 Outbreak

Abstract: Background: Twitter is an instant micro-blogging service that allows users to post, read, and exchange information and thoughts easily with masses across the globe. In response to the 2009 Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 outbreak (aka "swine flu"), users produced thousands of posts on the subject. Media outlets have claimed that Twitter and other forms of social media have led to the viral distribution of mass misinformation and may be a threat to public health and government initiatives. However, quantifiable evidence of these claims has not been substantiated. Objective: This exploratory project aims to analyze the content of Twitter posts or “tweets” shared during the H1N1 outbreak to determine the types and quality of information that social media users are exchanging in pandemics. Methods: Using the Infovigil system, an emerging infoveillance system, we are continuously identifying and archiving health-related tweets. Between April 28 and May 11, 2009, we archived over 300,000 tweets containing the keywords or hashtags “swine flu”, “swineflu”, or “H1N1”. A random selection of tweets from each hour of each day were coded for content by two raters. A multi-axial coding scheme was created using an iterative process to reflect the range of data. Data analysis consisted of descriptive statistics and univariate analysis of content between days. Non-English posts and reposts (“retweets”) were excluded from the analysis. Results: Preliminary analysis of 400 tweets indicates that news posts were the most common type of information shared (46%) followed by public health education (19.18%) and H1N1-related humour (18.25%). 36.75% of all posts quoted news articles verbatim and provided URLs to the source. Only 7 cases could be identified as possible sources of misinformation. Conclusions: Contrary to anecdotal evidence, misinformation is not rampantly spread via Twitter. Instead, the service is being utilized to distribute news and information from credible sources and almost one of five tweets are of humorous nature. Contrary to some media reports of Twitter fueling an epidemic of misinformation, Twitter can and is already used to quickly disseminate pandemic information to the public. Further analysis of tweets collected during an epidemic will allow us to refine the Infovigil system for twitter-based syndromic surveillance []

Twitter adoption and use in mass convergence and emergency events

Abstract: This paper offers a descriptive account of Twitter (a microblogging service) across four high-profile, mass convergence events - two emergency and two national security. We statistically examine how Twitter is being used surrounding these events, and compare and contrast how that behaviour is different from more general Twitter use. Our findings suggest that Twitter messages sent during these types of events contain more displays of information broadcasting and brokerage, and we observe that general Twitter use seems to have evolved over time to offer more of an information-sharing purpose. We also provide preliminary evidence that Twitter users who join during and in apparent relation to a mass convergence or emergency event are more likely to become long-term adopters of the technology.

Infodemiology and infoveillance: framework for an emerging set of public health informatics methods to analyze search, communication and publication behavior on the Internet.

Abstract: Infodemiology can be defined as the science of distribution and determinants of information in an electronic medium, specifically the Internet, or in a population, with the ultimate aim to inform public health and public policy. Infodemiology data can be collected and analyzed in near real time. Examples for infodemiology applications include: the analysis of queries from Internet search engines to predict disease outbreaks (eg. influenza); monitoring peoples' status updates on microblogs such as Twitter for syndromic surveillance; detecting and quantifying disparities in health information availability; identifying and monitoring of public health relevant publications on the Internet (eg. anti-vaccination sites, but also news articles or expert-curated outbreak reports); automated tools to measure information diffusion and knowledge translation, and tracking the effectiveness of health marketing campaigns. Moreover, analyzing how people search and navigate the Internet for health-related information, as well as how they communicate and share this information, can provide valuable insights into health-related behavior of populations. Seven years after the infodemiology concept was first introduced, this paper revisits the emerging fields of infodemiology and infoveillance and proposes an expanded framework, introducing some basic metrics such as information prevalence, concept occurrence ratios, and information incidence. The framework distinguishes supply-based applications (analyzing what is being published on the Internet, eg. on Web sites, newsgroups, blogs, microblogs and social media) from demand-based methods (search and navigation behavior), and further distinguishes passive from active infoveillance methods. Infodemiology metrics follow population health relevant events or predict them. Thus, these metrics and methods are potentially useful for public health practice and research, and should be further developed and standardized. [J Med Internet Res 2009;11(1):e11]

Social media use in the United States: implications for health communication.

Abstract: Background: Given the rapid changes in the communication landscape brought about by participative Internet use and social media, it is important to develop a better understanding of these technologies and their impact on health communication. The first step in this effort is to identify the characteristics of current social media users. Up-to-date reporting of current social media use will help monitor the growth of social media and inform health promotion/communication efforts aiming to effectively utilize social media. Objective: The purpose of the study is to identify the sociodemographic and health-related factors associated with current adult social media users in the United States. Methods: Data came from the 2007 iteration of the Health Information National Trends Study (HINTS, N = 7674). HINTS is a nationally representative cross-sectional survey on health-related communication trends and practices. Survey respondents who reported having accessed the Internet (N = 5078) were asked whether, over the past year, they had (1) participated in an online support group, (2) written in a blog, (3) visited a social networking site. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify predictors of each type of social media use. Results: Approximately 69% of US adults reported having access to the Internet in 2007. Among Internet users, 5% participated in an online support group, 7% reported blogging, and 23% used a social networking site. Multivariate analysis found that younger age was the only significant predictor of blogging and social networking site participation; a statistically significant linear relationship was observed, with younger categories reporting more frequent use. Younger age, poorer subjective health, and a personal cancer experience predicted support group participation. In general, social media are penetrating the US population independent of education, race/ethnicity, or health care access. Conclusions: Recent growth of social media is not uniformly distributed across age groups; therefore, health communication programs utilizing social media must first consider the age of the targeted population to help ensure that messages reach the intended audience. While racial/ethnic and health status–related disparities exist in Internet access, among those with Internet access, these characteristics do not affect social media use. This finding suggests that the new technologies, represented by social media, may be changing the communication pattern throughout the United States. [J Med Internet Res 2009;11(4):e48]

Take Two Aspirin And Tweet Me In The Morning: How Twitter, Facebook, And Other Social Media Are Reshaping Health Care

Abstract: If you want a glimpse of what health care could look like a few years from now, consider “Hello Health,” the Brooklyn-based primary care practice that is fast becoming an emblem of modern medicine....

Relational learning via latent social dimensions

Abstract: Social media such as blogs, Facebook, Flickr, etc., presents data in a network format rather than classical IID distribution. To address the interdependency among data instances, relational learning has been proposed, and collective inference based on network connectivity is adopted for prediction. However, connections in social media are often multi-dimensional. An actor can connect to another actor for different reasons, e.g., alumni, colleagues, living in the same city, sharing similar interests, etc. Collective inference normally does not differentiate these connections. In this work, we propose to extract latent social dimensions based on network information, and then utilize them as features for discriminative learning. These social dimensions describe diverse affiliations of actors hidden in the network, and the discriminative learning can automatically determine which affiliations are better aligned with the class labels. Such a scheme is preferred when multiple diverse relations are associated with the same network. We conduct extensive experiments on social media data (one from a real-world blog site and the other from a popular content sharing site). Our model outperforms representative relational learning methods based on collective inference, especially when few labeled data are available. The sensitivity of this model and its connection to existing methods are also examined.

Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business

Abstract: Praise for Socialnomics "It's obvious that Erik Qualman's passion is social media." Dan Heath, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Made to Stick and Switch "People are hot for social media . . . Erik Qualman says it's about listening first, then selling." Forbes "Erik Qualman has been doing his homework on the social media phenomenon." The Huffington Post "This is a must-read for anyone trying to leverage the social graph rather than be squashed by it." Steve Kaufer, CEO, TripAdvisor "You learn a lot about someone from how they treat their moms. Erik is a trustworthy guy." Chris Brogan, New York Times bestselling author of Trust Agents and Social Media 101 "Qualman is to social media what Demming is to quality and Drucker to management." Scott Galloway, Professor, Stern School of Business, NYU The newly revised and updated guide to the social media revolution! Welcome to the world of Socialnomicswhere consumers and the societies they create online have profound effects on our economy and the businesses that operate within it. Online word of mouth, social search, social commerce, and the influence of peer groups are making traditional marketing strategies obsolete. As a result, we no longer have a choice on whether we do social media; the question is how well we do it. Join Erik Qualman in Socialnomics for a fascinating look at the business implications of social media, and tap its considerable power to increase sales, cut marketing costs, and communicate directly with consumers.

The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success

Abstract: The bestselling bible for social media is now completely revised and updated! The Social Media Bible, Second Edition (www.TSMB2.com) is the most comprehensive resource that transforms the way corporate, small business, and non-profit companies use social media to reach their desired audiences with power messages and efficiency. In this Second Edition, each of the three parts - Tactics, Tools, and Strategies - have been updated to reflect the most current social media trends. Covers all major new software applications, including features and benefits, in detail Lists more than 120 companies integral to the social media industry with updated data, products, services, and links Includes advanced topics like measuring social media return on investment (ROI) and how to develop and implement the Five Steps to Social Media Success strategy plan Includes dozens of social media ROI case studies Author is a widely acknowledged social media authority with numerous media appearances and speaking engagements The Social Media Bible, Second Edition gives you a fully up-to-date toolbox to revamp your marketing strategy and create new opportunities for growth.

To join or not to join: the illusion of privacy in social networks with mixed public and private user profiles

Abstract: In order to address privacy concerns, many social media websites allow users to hide their personal profiles from the public. In this work, we show how an adversary can exploit an online social network with a mixture of public and private user profiles to predict the private attributes of users. We map this problem to a relational classification problem and we propose practical models that use friendship and group membership information (which is often not hidden) to infer sensitive attributes. The key novel idea is that in addition to friendship links, groups can be carriers of significant information. We show that on several well-known social media sites, we can easily and accurately recover the information of private-profile users. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that uses link-based and group-based classification to study privacy implications in social networks with mixed public and private user profiles.

Using online social networking for teaching and learning: Facebook use at the University of Cape Town

Abstract: Web-based learning has made learning content much more freely and instantaneously available to students who can download course notes and readings with a single mouse click. Facebook is one of many Web 2.0 tools – wikis, delicious, YouTube, podcasts – that are listed as having potential applications for teaching and learning. Moreover, it has been argued that the current generation of youth, often described as Net Geners or Digital Natives, may be resistant to traditional methods of teaching and learning. This article explores student use of Facebook at the University of Cape Town, as well as lecturer engagement with students via the new social media. Drawing on a virtual ethnography and qualitative interviews, this article shows that while there are potential positive benefits to using Facebook in teaching and learning, particularly for the development of educational micro-communities, certain challenges, including ICT literacy and uneven access, remain pertinent.

Following you: Disciplines of listening in social media

Abstract: This paper develops the concept of listening as a metaphor for paying attention online. Pejorative terms such as ‘lurking’ have failed to capture much detail about the experience of presence online. Instead, much online media research has focused on ‘having a voice’, be it in blogs, wikis, social media, or discussion lists. The metaphor of listening can offer a productive way to analyse the forms of online engagement that have previously been overlooked, while also allowing a deeper consideration of the emerging disciplines of online attention. Social media are the focus of this paper, and in particular, how these platforms are changing the configurations of the ideal listening subject. Three modes of online listening are discussed: background listening, reciprocal listening, and delegated listening; Twitter provides a case study for how these modes are experienced and performed by individuals, politicians and corporations.

Is There an Elite Hold? Traditional Media to Social Media Agenda Setting Influence in Blog Networks

Abstract: According to several 2008 reports, blogging continues to attract writers and readers (Comscore Media Matrix, 2008; eMarketer, 2008; Sifry, 2008; Universal McCann, 2008). This form of Web content creation has matured beyond public personal journaling to support citizen journalism or journalism produced by independent bloggers unaffiliated with professional newsrooms (Lenhart & Fox, 2006). The popularity of blogs is in part fueled by its interactive format: The blog tool is popularly believed to be a vehicle of democracy because it fosters decentralized citizen control as opposed to hierarchical, elite control (Crumlish, 2004; Levine, Locke, Searls, & Weinberger, 2001; Rosen, 2006; Scoble & Israel, 2006; Suroweicki, 2005; Weinberger, 2003, 2008). This inversion of elite control is the social outcome of a more interactive format. Blogs are popularly viewed as a form of social media, or media that is architected by design to readily support participation, peer-to-peer conversation, collaboration, and community (O’Reilly, 2004). Social media tools such as blogs enable Web content creators to circumvent the high transaction costs that once characterized usage of earlier media technologies (Gillmor, 2004; Benkler, 2006; Bowman & Willis, 2003; Shirky, 2008). Independent political bloggers that comment on day-to-day news command a readership rivaling that of traditional media entities (Armstrong & Moulitsas Zuniga, 2006). The initial public derision heaped by traditional media entities on these independent bloggers unaffiliated with traditional, professional newsrooms (Rosen, 2005) continues to wane as these bloggers gain respect among Web readers (Johnson & Kaye, 2004). Top independent political bloggers have played an influential role in holding public officials accountable from Trent Lott to Dan Rather (Meraz, 2008). The blog form has matured to resemble traditional journalism in form and practice: Top, independent bloggers now hire editors, blog full-time, and engage in investigative journalism acts (Stoller, 2007; Strupp, 2008). The growth in the independent political blogger’s credibility has taken place against the backdrop of traditional media’s loss

Crisis in a Networked World

Abstract: Crises and disasters have micro and macro social arrangements that differ from routine situations, as the field of disaster studies has described over its 100-year history. With increasingly pervasive information and communications technology and a changing political arena where terrorism is perceived as a major threat, the attention to crisis is high. Some of these new features of social life have created changes in disaster response that we are only beginning to understand. The University of Colorado is establishing an area of sociologically informed research and information and communications technology development in crisis informatics. This article reports on research that examines features of computer-mediated communication and information sharing activity during and after the April 16, 2007, crisis at Virginia Tech by members of the public. The authors consider consequences that these technology-supported social interactions have on emergency response and implications for methods in e-Social Science.

The Social Media Marketing Book

Abstract: Are you looking to take advantage of social media for your business or organization? With easy-to-understand introductions to blogging, forums, opinion and review sites, and social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, this book will help you choose the best -- and avoid the worst -- of the social web's unique marketing opportunities. The Social Media Marketing Book guides you through the maze of communities, platforms, and social media tools so you can decide which ones to use, and how to use them most effectively. With an objective approach and clear, straightforward language, Dan Zarrella, aka "The Social Media & Marketing Scientist," shows you how to plan and implement campaigns intelligently, and then measure results and track return on investment. Whether you're a seasoned pro or new to the social web, this book will take you beyond the jargon to social media marketing mastery. Make sense of this complicated environment with the help of screenshots, graphs, and visual explanations Understand the history and culture of each social media type, including features, functionality, and protocols Get clear-cut explanations of the methods you need to trigger viral marketing successes Choose the technologies and marketing tactics most relevant to your campaign goals Learn how to set specific goals for your campaigns and evaluate them according to key performance indicators

Why People Use Social Networking Sites

Abstract: One of the recent popular social media platforms is the social networking site (SNS). Thus far, few previous studies have empirically investigated people's motivations for SNS usage, especially not outside the U.S. This study combines a large-scale quantitative and qualitative research design, by asking 1,200 SNS users an open question regarding their reasons for using SNSs. An important conclusion drawn from a preliminary content analysis is that people often report many motivational reasons for using SNSs . The most important reason is to get in contact with new people (31%). The second most valued was to keep in touch with their friends (21%), whereas the third was general socializing (14%). A total of 11 different reasons and several sub-reasons were identified; that all give insight into the personal incentives that drive people to use SNSs and thus contribute to our understanding of how to develop successful social networking online.

An experiential, social network‐based approach to direct marketing

Abstract: Purpose – Direct marketing faces challenges and opportunities associated with the emergence of social network media. Companies need to address target audiences both directly and also indirectly through social media. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the changing media landscape of direct marketing, and proposes a model of direct and indirect targeting of buyers.Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model is presented which brings together the needs of producers, sellers and communities. Customer experience is used as an integrative framework for reconciling the sometimes differing needs of these groups.Findings – The literature is reviewed, noting changes in media habits. Previous studies of social network users provide a picture of the benefits sought by members of online communities.Originality/value – Assessment of direct marketing has traditionally emphasised cognitive and behavioural metrics. This paper has proposed an experiential framework which may be more difficult to measu...

Examining the Impact of Web 2.0 and Social Media on Political Participation and Civic Engagement in the 2008 Obama Campaign

Abstract: This article explores the uses of Web 2.0 and social media by the 2008 Obama presidential campaign and asks three primary questions: (1) What techniques allowed the Obama campaign to translate online activity to on-the-ground activism? (2) What sociotechnical factors enabled the Obama campaign to generate so many campaign contributions? (3) Did the Obama campaign facilitate the development of an ongoing social movement that will influence his administration and governance? Qualitative data were collected from social media tools used by the Obama ‘08 campaign (e.g., Obama ‘08 Web site, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, e-mails, iPhone application, and the Change.gov site created by the Obama-Biden Transition Team) and public information. The authors find that the Obama ‘08 campaign created a nationwide virtual organization that motivated 3.1 million individual contributors and mobilized a grassroots movement of more than 5 million volunteers. Clearly, the Obama campaign utilized these tools to go beyond educating the public and raising money to mobilizing the ground game, enhancing political participation, and getting out the vote. The use of these tools also raised significant national security and privacy considerations. Finally, the Obama-Biden transition and administration utilized many of the same strategies in their attempt to transform political participation and civic engagement.

Gesundheit! Modeling Contagion through Facebook News Feed

Abstract: Whether they are modeling bookmarking behavior in Flickr or cascades of failure in large networks, models of diffusion often start with the assumption that a few nodes start long chain reactions, resulting in large-scale cascades. While reasonable under some conditions, this assumption may not hold for social media networks, where user engagement is high and information may enter a system from multiple disconnected sources. Using a dataset of 262,985 Facebook Pages and their associated fans, this paper provides an empirical investigation of diffusion through a large social media network. Although Facebook diffusion chains are often extremely long (chains of up to 82 levels have been observed), they are not usually the result of a single chain-reaction event. Rather, these diffusion chains are typically started by a substantial number of users. Large clusters emerge when hundreds or even thousands of short diffusion chains merge together. This paper presents an analysis of these diffusion chains using zero-inflated negative binomial regressions. We show that after controlling for distribution effects, there is no meaningful evidence that a start node’s maximum diffusion chain length can be predicted with the user's demographics or Facebook usage characteristics (including the user's number of Facebook friends). This may provide insight into future research on public opinion formation.

Personalized recommendation of social software items based on social relations

Abstract: We study personalized recommendation of social software items, including bookmarked web-pages, blog entries, and communities. We focus on recommendations that are derived from the user's social network. Social network information is collected and aggregated across different data sources within our organization. At the core of our research is a comparison between recommendations that are based on the user's familiarity network and his/her similarity network. We also examine the effect of adding explanations to each recommended item that show related people and their relationship to the user and to the item. Evaluation, based on an extensive user survey with 290 participants and a field study including 90 users, indicates superiority of the familiarity network as a basis for recommendations. In addition, an important instant effect of explanations is found - interest rate in recommended items increases when explanations are provided.

Scalable learning of collective behavior based on sparse social dimensions

Abstract: The study of collective behavior is to understand how individuals behave in a social network environment. Oceans of data generated by social media like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube present opportunities and challenges to studying collective behavior in a large scale. In this work, we aim to learn to predict collective behavior in social media. In particular, given information about some individuals, how can we infer the behavior of unobserved individuals in the same network? A social-dimension based approach is adopted to address the heterogeneity of connections presented in social media. However, the networks in social media are normally of colossal size, involving hundreds of thousands or even millions of actors. The scale of networks entails scalable learning of models for collective behavior prediction. To address the scalability issue, we propose an edge-centric clustering scheme to extract sparse social dimensions. With sparse social dimensions, the social-dimension based approach can efficiently handle networks of millions of actors while demonstrating comparable prediction performance as other non-scalable methods.

Community relations 2.0

Abstract: Before the Internet, organizations had far more time to monitor and respond to community activity, but that luxury is long gone, leaving them in dire need of a coherent outreach strategy, fresh skills, and adaptive tactics. Drawing on the authors' study of more than two dozen firms, this article describes the changes wrought by social media in particular and shows managers how to take advantage of them--lessons that Kaiser Permanente, Domino's, and others learned the hard way. Social media platforms enhance the power of communities by promoting deep relationships, facilitating rapid organization, improving the creation and synthesis of knowledge, and enabling robust filtering of information. The authors cite many examples from the health care industry, where social media participation is vigorous and influential. For instance, members of Sermo, an online network exclusively for doctors, used the site to call attention to and organize against insurers' proposed reimbursement cuts. And on PatientsLikeMe, where people share details about their chronic diseases and the treatments they've pursued, charts and progress curves help members visualize their own complex histories and allow comparisons and feedback among peers. As you modernize your company's approach to community outreach, you'll need to assemble a social media team equipped to identify new opportunities for engagement and prevent brand damage. In the most successful firms the authors studied, community management was a dedicated function, combining marketing, public relations, and information technology skills.

The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web

Abstract: Blogs, networking sites, and other examples of the social web provide businesses with a largely untapped marketing channel for products and services. But how do you take advantage of them? With The New Community Rules, you'll understand how social web technologies work, and learn the most practical and effective ways to reach people who frequent these sites. Written by an expert in social media and viral marketing, this book cuts through the hype and jargon to give you intelligent advice and strategies for positioning your business on the social web, with case studies that show how other companies have used this approach. The New Community Rules will help you: Explore blogging and microblogging, and find out how to use applications such as Twitter to create brand awareness Learn the art of conversation marketing, and how social media thrives on honesty and transparency Manage and enhance your online reputation through the social web Tap into the increasingly influential video and podcasting market Discover which tactics work -- and which don't -- by learning about what other marketers have tried Many consumers today use the Web as a voice. The New Community Rules demonstrates how you can join the conversation, contribute to the community, and bring people to your product or service.

MetaFac: community discovery via relational hypergraph factorization

Abstract: This paper aims at discovering community structure in rich media social networks, through analysis of time-varying, multi-relational data. Community structure represents the latent social context of user actions. It has important applications in information tasks such as search and recommendation. Social media has several unique challenges. (a) In social media, the context of user actions is constantly changing and co-evolving; hence the social context contains time-evolving multi-dimensional relations. (b) The social context is determined by the available system features and is unique in each social media website. In this paper we propose MetaFac (MetaGraph Factorization), a framework that extracts community structures from various social contexts and interactions. Our work has three key contributions: (1) metagraph, a novel relational hypergraph representation for modeling multi-relational and multi-dimensional social data; (2) an efficient factorization method for community extraction on a given metagraph; (3) an on-line method to handle time-varying relations through incremental metagraph factorization. Extensive experiments on real-world social data collected from the Digg social media website suggest that our technique is scalable and is able to extract meaningful communities based on the social media contexts. We illustrate the usefulness of our framework through prediction tasks. We outperform baseline methods (including aspect model and tensor analysis) by an order of magnitude.

What social media offers to health professionals and citizens

Abstract: Increased access to the Internet and mobile communication combined with strategic uses of social media can bring public health informa-tion to many more people, more quickly and directly than at any time in history.Access to information and com-munication technology (ICT) is growing every year in all regions of the world. About one in four people globally are us-ing the Internet.