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Tweeting Your Way to Better Health

By Jeff Arnold, CEO and Chairman

Over the past few years, the Sharecare team has brought together medical professionals, experts and organizations to answer consumers’ health questions in real-time during our many Twitter chats, which we host via our Twitter account @SharecareInc. For those of you less familiar with the social network, a Twitter Chat is a live “event” that happens at a set time (on Twitter), and is moderated by a host and focused around a general topic noted by a “hashtag.” Anyone can participate or follow along with the conversation. At first, Sharecare’s Twitter Chats were simply another way we could help people access reliable health information online; but we couldn’t have anticipated how successful – and beneficial – these events would become. For example, in January of this year, we held a Twitter chat about the childhood obesity epidemic: not only did the chat reach over 10 million people and generate more than 40 million impressions on Twitter, but the hashtag associated with the chat – #KeepKidsHealthy – became the #2 trending topic for health-conscious users in the United States on Twitter.

Why are Sharecare’s Twitter Chats so successful? The differentiator for us lies in our network of respected partners and health experts, which is second to none. During each Chat you can “talk” with subject matter experts from organizations like the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, the CDC, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and LIVESTRONG; as well as physicians from John Hopkins Medicine, UCLA Health, HCA Virginia, and Baptist Health South Florida. Whether its partnering with the American Cancer Society for their annual Great American Smokeout or the American Red Cross to promote summer safety, each of Sharecare’s Twitter Chats are a dynamic forum for anyone with an internet connection to have a dialogue directly with these experts.

Our next Twitter Chat – focused on maternal and infant health – takes place tomorrow, Thursday, July 23 from 12 to 3 p.m. ET, and will provide information on fertility, pregnancy and childbirth among many other topics relevant to expecting parents and those interested in healthy parenting of newborns. We anticipate this will be one of our most engaging and important Twitter Chats to-date, and encourage you to join the conversation. Any time between 12 and 3 ET tomorrow, just search for the hashtag #LetsTalkBabies on Twitter or, if you prefer not use Twitter, you can follow along in real-time on Sharecare.com. For more information about tomorrow’s #LetsTalkBabies Twitter Chat – including a list of the experts participating – check out www.sharecare.com/letstalkbabies.