As a medical professional, you may not see social media as a tool for improving patient care and building a successful practice. However, having a social media presence has become a powerful digital marketing strategy and a link between physicians and patients. Social media attracts billions of users daily – the physicians and researchers of the 21st century have the unique opportunity to harness the power of social media to educate the public, connect with experts, engage in public health discussions, and build their brands. That being said, the world of social media is a complex one, particularly for new users. A deliberate, evidence-based approach towards building your social media brand will help you get the most value for yourself and your business – in this OE Insight, we will explore the best strategies to help you create a strong social media presence.

Social media has become a source of information and facilitator of growth and connection. With a wide variety of platforms to choose from, clinicians can market themselves and their practice to people of all ages. Deciding which platforms to use is the first step: a closer look at the demographics of each platform will help you decide which ones to focus on to reach your target audience.

Facebook is the largest social media platform with 2.7 billion active users per month [2]; due to its large user base and engagement rate, everyone can benefit from a Facebook profile. Facebook is the perfect mix of all platforms: you can share pictures, videos, articles, life events, and your own thoughts and opinions on your ‘timeline’. Facebook also has many other features you can utilize to grow your brand and community like groups, event pages, and a marketplace to sell items.

Instagram’s strong, consistent growth in recent years has made it the second-largest social media platform. Instead of words, the platform is built almost entirely on visuals – photos and videos – accompanied with captions that have a 2,200 character limit. In the last two years, Instagram launched ‘Reels’, which are short, entertaining videos used to express creativity on the latest trends.

Twitter is an online news and social networking platform where users communicate using ‘tweets.’ Twitter’s main benefit is that it is ‘scan-worthy’ – because of Twitter's 280-character limit, catching up on the latest news is quick and easy. Twitter has built a reputation as being the top platform for breaking news and trending topics. With 42% of Twitter users being degree holders, you can expect a lot of medical experts to be present on Twitter [2].

LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network Where users can find jobs and internships, as well as build professional relationships. Your LinkedIn profile is like a resume – you can showcase your education, employment history and unique skills. LinkedIn allows you to post pictures, videos, articles and even organize offline events. Research shows the largest group of people using LinkedIn are between the ages of 46-55, but millennials still make up a quarter of all LinkedIn users [2]. Over 70% of LinkedIn users reside outside of the United States, making engaging with a global audience easy [2].

YouTube is the second largest search platform next to Google [3]. YouTube is a video sharing platform where users can upload their own videos, as well as like, share and comment on other videos on the network. Video content is 12 times more successful than other types of content; it generates higher engagement rates than both text and image content combined [4]. This has made YouTube a popular destination for clinicians looking to discuss the latest topics in research and public health, and the video format allows for creative delivery of content.

Titkok is a social media platform that has taken the world by storm in recent years, putting a creative spin on short-form video content. The platform is predominantly used by young people, however, Tiktok is noticing an increasing number of adults joining the platform. The search option on Tiktok makes it easy for users to find relatable content. The hashtag #orthopedics currently has 348.9 million views on Tiktok, which means there is a large audience for orthopaedic surgeons.

 

Once you’ve identified your target audience and platforms to best reach them, it’s time to start strategizing. A social media presence, much like a surgical team, functions best with a specific and comprehensive game plan.This entails setting goals for your social media strategy: the more defined your objectives are, the easier it will be to reach your audience, create engaging content and measure effectiveness. Social media goals can be:

Having a strong social media presence can help you recruit patients, retain patients, and manage your online reputation. When a patient searches you on the internet before making an appointment, viewing a reputable and strong social media presence can help get them through the door.

Dr. Mike Varshavski, better known as Dr. Mike, is a family physician based in New York City and he is no stranger to the perks that social media has to offer. Dr. Mike is one of the most popular physicians worldwide with over 4 million followers on Instagram and has even gained ‘celebrity status’ by being featured in the Times, Cosmopolitan, Business Inside and People’s Magazine. Dr. Mike achieved his social media fame on Instagram by posting pictures of his everyday life and keeping his followers entertained by posting consistently on his feed and quick snippets on his story.    Dr. Mike’s content is visually appealing, which makes Instagram the perfect platform for him. He used social media to build up his brand, attract new patients and educate about medical issues. 

Although Dr. Mike opted for a personal approach to social media, be assured this is not the only way to promote your practice. Due to protecting privacy and maintaining professionalism, many medical professionals opt for an education approach to social media, in which they share medical facts and evidence-based strategies with their audience.

Sharing health education with your audience has never been easier! You can use your social media presence to share news, discuss your newly published research, and create original content in the form of infographics, blogs, podcasts and videos. In a world filled with fake news, medical experts can combine their unique expertise with the power of social media to educate the public with helpful, accurate information. Dr. Vinay Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist and researcher, has been using his large audiences on Twitter and YouTube to educate the public and discuss health policy and research. With over 100,000 followers and subscribers on both platforms, social media has become an integral component of his professional brand.

Social media allows medical professionals to interact with their community and connect with other professionals in the field. With the recent pandemic, face-to-face interaction has been limited, but thanks to social media, clinicians and researchers can stay connected with their communities and on top of the latest advancements in their field. 

Kevin Pho, who’s been termed “social media’s leading physician’s voice”, has created a vibrant community of nurses, doctors, and the public. With an audience of over 160k followers on Twitter, Kevin Pho has been using the power of social media to discuss public health issues, breakthroughs in science, and more using an evidence-based approach.

The next step in building an effective social media strategy is creating engaging content. Whether your aim is to educate or build relationships, compelling, quality content is essential to captivate your audience. Creating content that resonates with your target market is directly related to how well you know your target market; identifying your target market allows you to focus your marketing efforts on the group that is most likely to engage with your content.

When it comes to posting content on social media, you don’t want to overwhelm your audience, but you also don’t want to be missed or forgotten. So how much is too much? How much is too little? Every social media platform is unique and has its own general guidelines with respect to the ideal posting schedule:

Instagram: 3-7 posts per week

Facebook: 1-2 posts per day 

Twitter: 1-5 tweets per day

LinkedIn: 1-5 posts per day

That being said, every account and audience is different. These general guidelines will help you but finding the best social media posting schedule for your views will require some trial and error. Above all, the quality of your content matters more than the frequency of posts. 

If you’ve been on social media, you’ve likely seen a hashtag used. A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by a pound symbol. A hashtag is a label used to make it easier to find information based on keywords or topics. Think of hashtags like a ‘Google search’ of social media: hashtags help your target audience find you and can help you be part of the conversation. For example, using the hashtag #orthopaedic will allow anyone with an interest in orthopaedics to find your post and join in on the conversation.

Thanks to hashtags, your posts are no longer limited to just your followers; choosing the right hashtag can broaden the reach of your post to thousands of viewers. That being said, you must strike a sensitivity-specificity balance with hashtags to ensure that you reach as much of your target audience without being so general that your message gets lost in the noise. For example, when posting about a rotator cuff repair, you may be tempted to use #shoulder, however, by using this common hashtag you will be competing with thousands of other pictures regarding the shoulder. Instead, try: #RotatorCuffInjury or #RotatorCuffTear

Without engagement, social media is just media. Social media engagement is the action of people directly interacting with you and your content. This term is used on all platforms and can range from; likes, comments, follows, clicks, favourites, messages, shares, retweets and mentions. Social media posts with more active engagement will get more reach, meaning the more engagement you receive on the post the higher your post is rated on the platform, resulting in your post being seen by more people. Engagement also helps to build relationships with your audience.

Social media platforms use algorithms to sort posts on a user's feed. Algorithms on social media are highly advanced and there are many influencing factors. Social media algorithms are meant to prioritize content for the viewer based on how likely the view is to want to see the post. For example, Facebook and Instagram will push posts from your close friends and family to the top of your feed because they are the accounts you interact with most. With this being said, the more your audience is engaging with your posts the more likely they are to see your future posts and the more likely the social media platforms are to put your post at the top of other views feeds. 

While there are many benefits of using social media as a medical professional, there are also a wide range of risks that should be considered before implementing this strategy. When social media is used to disseminate information either for health care professionals or the general public, it is not always possible to confirm the credibility of the information presented. 

One of the biggest challenges of using social media as a medical professional is determining how to apply principles of professionalism in online communication (6). The lines between the acceptable grounds of doctor-patient relationship can be blurred online through activities that are considered unethical in real life. An important factor to remember is; any information published online is irrevocable and when done without the best judgement, this can have significant negative implications for surgeons and their patients. 

 

As with everything, the data reveals the hard facts on the effectiveness of your social media strategy. Tracking your strategy’s performance through social media analytics is the key to knowing if you’re reaping the rewards from your social media efforts. Your social media analytics can help you gauge what content your audience is most responsive to, what your audience wants to see more of, and what content is not doing well. For example, if you are receiving more engagement on Twitter than on Instagram, it may be a good idea to allocate more time to posting on Twitter.

Social media platforms have made it easy to track your performance by providing you with new analytics daily, weekly and monthly. You can track your success by tracking how many accounts you’ve reached, how many accounts engaged, how many new followers you’ve gained and by how many shares a post receives. 

You now have the knowledge to harness the power of social media to educate the public, connect with experts, engage in public health discussions, and build your brand. In order to maximize the benefits of social media, be sure to set a goal, create eye-catching posts, engage with others and track your progress using platform analytics.  Social media is a powerful digital marketing strategy and can be a link between physicians and patients, so don’t be afraid to give it a try! By using these evidence-based approaches, building a brand, attracting potential patients and connecting with experts and the public has never been easier.