Description/Overview: Social media is a frequently used term that many people find difficult to explain and suffers the challenge of being poorly understood and commonly associated with professional practice risks rather than benefits. The goal of this symposium is to provide a fundamental understanding to participants about what social media is and the multifaceted ways it can be used for professional purposes. These symposium draws upon the experiences of a dean, nurse practitioner and nursing student that have used social media in their professional development, social networking, education and research. This symposium will balance the potential risks and rewards, and provide attendees insight into the benefits and potential challenges. In depth discussion will cover the important professional considerations including how to deal with ethical and legal risk, which is important for nurses as well as those setting policies for nursing schools and healthcare organizations. Challenges exist such as how to adopt tools rapidly evolving tools in an landscape of online tools that are constantly changing. Understanding how to maximize benefits and mitigate risk social media tools create is key to ensuring that nurses are empowered to use evolving tools to expand ways they can collaborate, develop knowledge and engage in knowledge transfer. Presentations will include both fundamental concepts of social media as well as basic tutorials for some of the tools used. This symposium is meant to help nurses understand why social media is a trend that cannot be ignored, explain professional uses that can help them advance their career, and teach basic skills to begin using discussed tools immediately.

Learner Objective #1: Examine the importance of social media in collaboration and networking among nurses of varied experience, education, and geographic locations.

Learner Objective #2: Describe how to use of nurses can develop communities of practice, generate ideas for research and transmitting anecdotal and evidence-based knowledge using social media