HealthCentral Launches @Health_Tips to Respond to Users' Health Questions on Twitter

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Oct 27, 2011, 01:33 ET

ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- HealthCentral (www.healthcentral.com) is proud to announce the launch of @Health_Tips, a new Twitter account which allows HealthCentral to systematically locate users' public health questions throughout Twitter and quickly respond, one-on-one, with trusted HealthCentral.com health resources and expert guidance. Through its proprietary technology and via this social platform, HealthCentral has already been able to help thousands of Twitter users seeking health information.

Over the last few years, Q&A content has grown exponentially. People want to connect and learn from others who have unique experiences that can provide them with credible insight not readily available anywhere but the web. Internet users are increasingly leveraging social media networks to get answers to their questions. Social sites offer the unique capacity to provide real time answers, based on resources from multiple sites or platforms and an enormous amount of collective wisdom. Health seekers are no exception. Everyday, there are upwards of 5,000 health questions asked on Twitter. To reach these users, HealthCentral's @Health_Tips:

Searches Twitter and identifies users' health questions OR users directly mention @Health_Tips with health questions
Automatically identifies HealthCentral.com's best content to respond to the question, based on relevancy, condition, question intent etc.
Composes a tweet/response to the original questioner through a personalized, never automated, 1 on 1 conversation with requested health information authored by HealthCentral's health experts.

"Possibly the most important value we get from this project is expanding our ability to connect with a new audience of health information seekers and understand their needs" says Jessica Simon, HealthCentral Vice President of Insights and Analytics. "We are looking at social media platforms in a unique way and this project allows us to understand common questions, popular topics, content consumers find helpful, templates that appeal to them and what we're missing. Ultimately through @Health_Tips we are better able serve the online health community."

Since the soft launch in June, engagement rates, both quantitatively and qualitatively, have drastically improved from months prior to the project. "Today, HealthCentral answers hundreds of questions per week and has proven successful in helping thousands of people on Twitter since the soft launch of @Health_Tips. On Twitter, the follower base has grown 28% in 3 months, as people we've helped continue to engage with @Health_Tips and HealthCentral.com," says Jessica Simon.

HealthCentral intends to continue using @Health_Tips as a way to directly engage with a variety of users and provide them with trusted and reliable answers to their specific health questions. To learn more about @Health_Tips please read our latest SoHealth blog post written by Jessica Simon and HealthCentral data specialist, and @Health_Tips project developer, Mark Silverberg.

About HealthCentral
HealthCentral (www.HealthCentral.com) empowers people to improve and take control of their health and well-being through more than 35 condition- and wellness-specific interactive health sites, including #1 HIV/AIDS site TheBody.com and healthy living resource Wellsphere.com. HealthCentral is venture backed by IAC/InteractiveCorp, Polaris Ventures, Sequoia Capital, The Carlyle Group and Allen & Company.

SOURCE HealthCentral