Did you know, once a month there are several tweet chats you can join to stretch your young adult cancer patient and survivor advocate muscles alongside Lacuna Loft?  Whether you’re looking to talk about young adult cancer in general, or want something slightly more focused like metastatic cancer, there are tweet chats and online communities everywhere you turn.  These tweet chats are a great place to chat with other young adult cancer survivors and healthcare professionals.  Lacuna Loft is active in two of them, in particular.  #AYACSM is the adolescent and young adult cancer societal movement and #MAYACC is the metastatic and advanced young adult cancer community.  #AYACSM’s next tweet chat is happening on September 25th @ 9 pm ET while #MAYACC’s next tweet chat is happening on September 13 @ 9 pm ET.

Never joined a tweet chat before?  Here are some logistics!

All you need to join is a twitter account!  Seriously, it is that easy.  Then, a few minutes before the tweet chat is to begin, go to ‘tweetdeck.com’ and log in using your twitter account.  On the left-hand column, there will be a menu toolbar.  In the search window, type in #ayacsm (or another hashtag for the tweet chat you’d like to join) and hit enter.  A new toolbar will appear with an ‘add column’ button at the bottom.  Click that button.  This will allow you to instantaneously see when someone has added a comment, answered/asked a question, or otherwise engaged with that hashtag (which is how you follow along with the tweet chat).  Whenever you’d like to join in the chat, click on the ‘New Tweet’ button on the left-hand toolbar and tweet away!  Always remember to add the hashtag of the tweet chat at the end of each tweet you send.  (In the #ayacsm tweet chat, always add ‘#ayacsm’ to the end of each tweet.)  This will make sure that your tweets are included in the tweet chat!

(You can also use these columns in Tweetdeck to search for any other hashtag you’d like.  Lacuna Loft pays special attention to #yacancer, #yarally, #caregivers, and others.)

We hope to see you in a few weeks at the #AYACSM and the #MAYACC tweet chats!

Like any other tweet chats or hashtags?  Let us know which ones you frequent!