I have had my own Twitter site since early 2010 but had never taken much interest in Twitter until late last year when I also set up a Twitter site for the Journal of Clinical Nursing (
http://twitter.com/jclinnursingeic) at the end of 2010 - over the Christmas break. Within a matter of days we had 100 followers and some of these were significant 'players' in the world of health, eg The King's Fund, The American Academy of Nursing and one local BBC TV station.
I set up a Twitter site for JCN without really knowing what I was going to use it for but watching what other people 'tweeted' and occasionally checking these tweets and the URLs in them the potential of Twitter became apparent. I have since been sending out regular updates on contents and early view online papers and highlighting papers and they are being picked up re-tweeted and we have had one request for papers from Nursing Times which they have featured. As I write (15 April 2011) JCN has over 200 followers and I have just established a site for Journal of Advanced Nursing (
http://twitter.com/jadvnursing) which I will be editing from January 2012.
The use of the JCN Twitter page has rekindled interest in my own Twitter page (
http://twitter.com/rwatson1955) which I find invaluable for breaking news but mostly amusing tweets from like-minded people who share my cyincal outlook on life - Private Eye and The Daily Mash - and those who hate homeopathy and nonsense like that. On my recent visit to Manlia where I addressed 760 nursing students I put my Twitter address on my slides and now many of them follow me and I can direct them to the JCN and JAN webpages.
I am just 'putting down a marker' here as I begin to realise the value of Twitter and am truly seeing its potential for 'viral' marketing of nursing journals. I'll be interested to hear from others and I'll re-visit this issue in due course.
