Prepare your Tech for the Social Discussions at #ASCO24

With #ASCO24 approaching, now is a great time for clinicians, researchers, caregivers and patient advocates to prepare for the social content of #ASCO24. There are really 2 dimensions (in person and virtual) to ASCO which need to be managed by all attendees and virtual attendees of the ASCO meeting. Of course, nothing is more effective than face to face discussions for building relationships, networking, and connecting with researchers, clinicians, customers, advocates, partners, etc. However, the virtual discussions of ASCO allow attendees to be in multiple places at once. Your ability to effectively monitor and perhaps engage in the #ASCO24 discussions on X, and also connect in person at ASCO is a very important and yet overwhelming activity and skill. 

Preparing for the Virtual ASCO

If an ASCO attendee is not on X or at least is not monitoring X, they are at a disadvantage. The conversations on X by the Oncology community are perhaps the most robust scientific and clinical discussions online occurring across the field of medicine. If an ASCO attendee is not aware of these discussions, they are simply missing the boat. It's OK not to like Elon Musk. It's not OK to choose to ignore the valuable discussions of your peers and customers. So how can someone prepare for the virtual ASCO?

1. Follow the #ASCO24 Hashtag on X: This is the easiest way to follow the data from #ASCO24. However, you'll quickly get overwhelmed by the flow of data from the multiple sessions, or the sharing of all the images from a plenary session.  All the selfies are an important part of connecting at #ASCO24, however, if you're trying to extract data from powerful discussions, it's not easy to scroll through the overwhelming timeline.  Also, there are a lot of industry posts and publication posts on the timeline that also make it crowded. It's a start but not really a perfect solution.

2. Create your own lists: This is a great way to prepare for ASCO24. You can use a tool like KOL Pulse AI to discover specialists in different tumor types to build your lists. Following KOL conversations on KOL Pulse AI can help you determine the KOLs that are most open to sharing their thoughts on different tumor types and/or within specific treatments and technologies.  One problem with generic lists by specialty includes the redundancy of tweets during plenary sessions, or the selfie problem of X.  Once again, selfies are fun and cool, and a great way to build a network and share comaraderie on social media. However, if you're trying to follow the best discussions on X regarding a specific clinical trial from #ASCO24, the redundant postings of images, and selfies do get in the way a bit.  KOL Pulse AI provides you with some insights to build a list of #ASCO24 communicators that can help cut through social flow of data. With X, you can pin lists to your mobile app for easy viewing of the stream.

Here are  some lists we've curated of top KOLs to follow by tumor type. These are good lists to get you started on X:

Lung Cancer

GI Cancers

Genitourinary Cancers

Breast Cancer

3. Build custom searches: Once you have lists created, you can build custom searches for keywords within lists.  You'll need to use the advanced search feature of X to do this, but it is very effective. You're basically filtering the vast universe of X to a small group of specialists, and further filtering based on their mentions of specific keywords such as clinical trial names or therapy names. 

4. Follow the X Aggregators: There are several X accounts that do a nice job of summarizing the data from the conferences into Tweetorial format, basically a string of connected tweets on X. These accounts will often highlight a tweet or two for a given clinical trial, and share the high level data from a clinical trial.  This is helpful in organizing results from the various clinical trial presentations.  These aggregators get a lot of likes and retweets, and their data is often very effective at building their following.  However, these tweet streams are really the Cliff's Notes of the particular session track. Rarely do these aggregators outline the give and take of various specialists as they discuss the fine points of a clinical trial.  Also, some of these aggregators may have close relationships with Pharma or Pharma advertisers, so their messages may seem to be a bit more on the promotional side.  They provide a great resource, just maybe some are missing the really good conversations that are occurring below the surface.

5. Follow the Video Summaries: Many Pharma advertisers will highlight certain KOLs for video clips on X or YouTube.  Many times, these clips will be done by the Clinical Trial PI themselves, giving you access to a great resource for a clinical trial summary.  These clips may be very helpful, but once again, you're only getting the opinion of the PI.  There are some videos and podcasts by KOLs that do offer a bit of skepticism or criticism of clinical trials. These KOLs may provide a great balance to a clinical trial discussion.

6. Curate your own content: I do this for a living so I can offer you some great tools.  Bookmarking Tweets with X is a really simple and effective way of organizing data from the #ASCO24 timeline. You can create Bookmark folders which may help you categorize the discussions through X. Tools such as Pocket may also be helpful to organize the data from the web and categorize it for future research.  YouTube lists may also be helpful as you curate the data from various KOLs. This is a great way to consume content during a run, walk, or while you're on a Peloton. You can just turn on a YouTube list and let the list run while you're exercising, walking, fishing, etc. If you want to build a curated site with all of the above, please consider signing up for the KOL Pulse beta. The tool is designed to specialize KOL content curation around medical meetings.

Just Follow KOL Pulse AI

KOL Pulse AI is really the ideal tool for consuming the virtual conversations of #ASCO24. The tool acts as a content curator, organizer, and discovery mechanism for researchers, clinicians, etc. that want to learn from their digital opinion leaders and peers. Also, the KOL Pulse AI tool is an effective tool to combat misinformation and hype that may often accompany a large medical meeting.  The KOL Pulse AI tool links US Based KOLs to their open payments history so you can check out any potential COIs that may exist within a specific KOL discussion group. You can also double click on the past relevant tweets of a KOL to determine their communication style on X and their history of commentary regarding a specific clinical trial. 

Benefits of KOL Pulse AI

Discovery of Digital Opinion Leaders : The KOL Pulse AI tool provides a very effective format for discovery of digital opinion leaders within the context of a clinical trial discussion.  Some KOLs are great at selfies, while others may have a small following  and their insights are well respected across various specialties such as oncology, surgery, radiation oncology, pathology, etc.

Organized Clinical Trial Conversations: There's a lot of talk about virtual adboards, but nothing is more organic than a group of specialists in the treatment of cancer sharing their opinions on newly released clinical trial data. Whether physicians are discussing clinical relevance or sharing images of the relevant slides to make a point, the KOL Pulse AI tool is a great hub for  learning about the thoughts of digital opinion leaders in oncology.

ASCO Buzz without the Hype:  ASCO is a huge stage for PIs and their Pharma trial sponsors. Of course there is going to be hype from the oncology community. Pharma companies often share their talking points via press releases and tweets, and these talking points may oftentimes coincide with the Conclusion slide of a Plenary presentation.  Also, many pharma advertisers have very effective social media platforms where Pharma speakers and consultants may also offer similar talking points about a clinical trial.  However, Digital KOLs have their own criticisms, and insights and KOL Pulse AI delivers these peer discussions in an organized format.

Deep Dive on KOL Profiles: KOl Pulse AI provides a great tool for researching the specialist behind the tweet. Where do they practice?, where did they complete their fellowship program? and what are their ties to pharma?... are all questions that are quickly answered with a few clicks around the KOL Pulse AI profile.  Also, understanding their communication style and the social network of a KOL is important. Digital KOLs seem to converse in clusters.

Identify New Voices in the Crowd: One of the benefits of the #ASCO24 discussion stream will be the introduction of new voices in the crowd. Although a physician may share a great insight regarding a clinical trial, the X algo may not promote it due to a lack of followers. With KOL Pulse AI, the sentiment analysis may help you quickly identify these new digital opinion leaders.

Get Insights from Artificial Intelligence: KOL Pulse AI Beta Users can export Clinical Trial Discussions to CSV files for upload to your favorite Artificial Intelligence platform for ideation and insight generation. Beta Users can also use CHAT GPT within a Tagged topic for insghts from the Key Opinion Leader Discussions.

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