Who to follow in 2014?

The New Year is here and have been a few ‘who to follow in 2014’ lists popping up on Twitter. Physiotherapists and other allied health professionals (AHPs) seem noticeably absent from these lists, so I started to think about who should be included on a ‘who to follow’ list of physiotherapists and AHPs.  But then I stopped and thought some more. There are so many enthusiastic and knowledgeable tweeters out there that who you choose to follow will depend on your experience and interests, so spending time developing a list of  physiotherapists to follow is probably of limited use.  I also wondered if developing a list might alienate people – both within and outside of the profession, and the great thing about Twitter is that it can break down boundaries between services, professions and hierarchies rather than build them up. In developing physiotalk we want to be collaborative and encourage people to get involved.

That said, following the right people can be key to getting the most out of Twitter and if you are new to it all then recommendations can be really useful. So, instead of list of who to follow in 2014 here are some suggestions for how to choose who to follow in 2014:

• Start with some national organisations, including @theCSP and @The_HCPC.  Others will depend on your interests but might include health charities, other professional bodies and regulators, NHS organisations and @NICEcomms
• Follow some patient leaders, including @NVTweeting
• Follow some AHPs
• Follow some physiotherapists, physiotherapists who blog and also universities, lecturers, researchers and physiotherapy students
• Choose some health and social care leaders and other healthcare professionals from a  broad range of professional backgrounds
• Choose some journals such as @HSJnews, @PTJournal, @Age_and_Ageing and @BJSM_BMJ
• Follow your local CSP board or regional network and also professional networks
• #FF stands for Follow Friday and can be a good way to see who other tweeters recommend following
• Look at who the people you follow are following, and who they are followed by
• Subscribe to other people’s  Twitter lists – you can subscribe to them as a way of reading tweets from everyone on the list – this can give you access to lots of information but you can also use lists as a way of finding people.

Hopefully this list is useful, and if nothing else illustrates the range of physiotherapists and other healthcare professionals and organisations using Twitter as we start the New Year.  All the links above are for lists created for @physiotalk and we will continue to add to these over the year.

If you have any other suggestions these are very welcome via Twitter or by commenting on this post.

As for how we can increase our influence as a physiotherapy community on Twitter and feature more in the lists of 2015? Join us on Twitter for #physiotalk on 6^th January for ‘making social media work for you in 2014’, and on the 20^th January for ‘strategic influencing with Twitter’!

Happy New Year everyone, @NaomiMcVey.