You might be a digital health expert if…
You tweet a lot using the #DigitalHealth hashtag.
At least that’s what I got from a recent list I saw posted about the most influential people in Digital Health. That’s right, they translated number of tweets with a certain hashtag to “Influential People.”
Listen, I get why people put these lists together. If you put a bunch of influential people on your list, then you’ll get those influential people to share some of their influence with you because who doesn’t like to share that they’ve been listed as influential. I know this because people have been kind enough to put Healthcare Scene’s blogs on a lot of lists over the years.
That said, a lot of tweets does not an influencer make.
I recently saw my local political commentator talk about how many of the Tweeters for a political candidate that were tweeting him had a similar Twitter stats profile. They’d be something like 40,000 tweets and 300 followers.
It’s worth pointing out that number of followers shouldn’t be used as a full measure of influence either. However, if you’ve tweeted that much noise and only have 300 followers, you’re not likely that influential. The amount of noise you make doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone is listening even if people are reading more hashtags lately and following people less.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a great way to know who’s really reading and listening to someone who’s engaging on social media. Especially when you don’t own the account yourself. So, let’s be careful in the words we use to describe influence. Instead, these lists are a lot of fun and a great way to find new, interesting people. That’s a powerful and worthwhile thing.
