Chatting on Twitter for NBHAAD

February 4, 2013 • 0 comments • By Wayne Duffus, Associate Director for Health Equity, CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention

Dr. Wayne Duffus

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), along with its partners, will be hosting a Twitter event tomorrow, Tuesday, February 5, at 2pm ET, to commemorate National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD), which takes place annually on February 7.
Twitter events give us an opportunity to connect with people across the country and in every community. For tomorrow’s Twitter chat we have already asked for and received numerous questions from community members on information that is important to them. We will be answering these questions during the chat. We will hear from members of African American communities across the United States, subject matter experts, and other participants as we address specific questions about HIV and AIDS in African American communities.
CDC leaders and partners from the NBHAAD Strategic Leadership Council

(SLC) will participate. The chat will also include members of the Act Against AIDS Leadership Initiative (AAALI), some of the nation’s foremost African American and Hispanic/Latino organizations that are helping to intensify HIV prevention efforts in black communities.
Everyone is encouraged to participate as we address getting educated about HIV, getting tested, getting involved, and getting treatment, if needed. Join the chat by using the hashtag #NBHAADchat or follow @DrDeanCDC

for the latest information on the chat.

Advice for First-time Twitter Chat Participants

If you have never participated in a Twitter chat, it is very easy to follow the conversation. Simply login into your account and type the designated hashtag (i.e., #NBHAADchat

) for the specific chat in the search box. All tweets associated with the chat will display in the feed.

New Account Set-Up

If you do not have a Twitter account, it is very easy to establish one. Before set-up, you will need to determine a unique profile name describing the subject matter of your account, a biography which is a 160 character description of your profile and an image to display in the header. Log into twitter.com

to get started. You may want to review some established accounts as examples. In order to be certain all Twitter chat participants are able to view your tweets, please be sure your Tweet Privacy setting is set as the default (the box is left unchecked.) This can be found under Settings.

Watching a Twitter Chat

To simply follow the conversation without establishing an account, you may search the designated chat hashtag at this link: https://twitter.com/search

.
To find a NBHAAD event in your community, go to www.nationalblackaidsday.org

. For more information, go to CDC’s NBHAAD feature.