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Social media is becoming a facet of our lives and a tool for connecting, uniting and supporting people. Its use is growing in nursing, medical and health settings. This article describes the process, development and growth of an online community to connect nurses via Twitter using hashtags. Data was analysed to identify the benefits, barriers and enablers for the creation of an online nursing community. Methods consisted of key word searches in Twitter relevant to nursing, visits to the WeNurses website and tracking the number of followers on the website. A social media monitoring tool (SM2) was used to monitor visibility to establish baseline data and identify trends. WeNurses was launched in July 2012 and has over 7000 followers. Visits to the website are between 500 and 1500 each day.

The use of a systematic nursing approach including the key principles of both nursing and social media (honesty, transparency …