Presentation given Monday 30 March at the ANZAHPE AMEA Conference in Newcastle, Australia Abstract: The Health Professional Educators Guide To Social Media David Townsend University of New England, NSW, Australia Introduction/ Background The new frontier of Social Media presents a fantastic opportunity for health professional educators (HPE’s) to expand their professional networks, keep up to date with the latest news and developments in health education and provides an exciting interactive vehicle for communicating with students and trainees This workshop will be a taster for HPE’s who are interested in Social Media but don’t know where to begin and will provide them with the confidence and tools to get off to a flying start. Our goal is not simply to inform people about the benefits of social media, but instead to get them active and involved so they can experience it for themselves. Purpose/Objectives David will be presenting about how Australian & international social media pioneers have used their blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook to develop networks across the world. He will be expanding upon the results of the study he presented at ANZHPE14 (Townsend, D. Guppy, M. Methods Used by Australian Medical Students to Assess the Quality of Social Media Educational Resources) and showing how the results of this study can be implemented. He will also be sharing how to keep safe online and balance the risks to ensure you protect your professional reputation. This will be a hands on workshop with all participants expected to give social media a go! Learning objectives: The workshop will be based on a 60% practical and 40% theoretical mix. At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to: 1. Sign up, Sign in, Follow hashtags & Start interacting on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn. 2. Establish a Facebook page & Blog to start interacting with their students & colleagues 3. Protect their professional reputation online Method or Issues for exploration/ideas for discussion David will be sharing his social media experience, however the majority of the time will be made up with practical walkthroughs on how to sign up and speak up on social media networks. He will also be providing a printed “how to” guide for use on the day and will be directing participants to the Social Media GP website (www.socialmediagp.org), a website specifically developed for GPs and other health professionals with more advanced information on social media for use after the event. Social Media GP has been developed by David and a team of GP’s, GP registrars and medical students.