Twitter is a fantastic tool to build a prospering (trauma) research community. At least, that’s what I tried to make you believe :-).
The main arguments? It’s an ideal platform for sharing new publications, brainstorming on how to solve difficulties in your research, and finding support.
Two beautiful examples of active communities are #phdchat and #hcsmanz (although the latter is not focused on research per se, it does discuss it).
I received many positive reactions on the post (and on it’s succesor How to start with Twitter when you are a trauma researcher), including a number of people who joined Twitter (yes!).
So I thought it would be nice to organize a Tweet chat, to get to know each other and exchange some ideas & tips on the use of social media.
Ouch… there was only one participant, who had to run for a meeting after a few minutes… Possibly, I have been too quick with setting the chat up. Another option is that the timing was inconvenient for people. However, seeing the amount of interest in the past few weeks, I think there will be a moment that we’ll have that rich exchange.
Therefore, let’s see if we can find a good moment for a new chat. Even if the group is small (but preferably, more than two :-)), it can be valuable and fun.
Trauma Recovery Lab 
Hi Dr Eva,
There is a possibility that in this niche, health professionals are not yet comfortable or fluent with the use of Twitter. I would humbly suggest emailing those on your contact list with a blog post for discussion like you already have (see above) with a request to comment on the post.
This would be a better compromise as many are not fluent with Twitter/pressed for time and can respond to a post via comments.
Hi Kishan,
Thanks! I completely agree: uptake of Twitter takes time in my domain and the trick will be to make people curious about social media via traditional ones like email.
Looking back, it also took a while before I found out how Twitter could be of value; to come across hashtags like #phdchat & #hcsmanz, you need to allow for quite some ‘exploration time’. Hope I can provide people my field with some shortcuts :-).
Dear Eva,
I agree with Kishan suggestion and your own experiences. I did also take quite a while for me to become aquianted and comfortable with Twitter – and to learn how it can in any way be useful for my work. I’m quite sure that you can provide shortcuts to people, but regardsless it will take a while, so patience is needed.
But using other media which people are more comfortable with might be a good approach. I think that the Twitter journal club might also be a “way in”. Journal clubs is something people are familiar with and it is something that takes its starting point in a “traditional” science media: The peer-reviewed journal + scientific discussion. Maybe try and learn for the Public Health Twitter Journal Club would be an idea (http://publichealth2point0.com/2011/08/18/from-a-bakers-shop-to-twitter-a-new-public-health-journal-club-emerges/)