Five social media tips for physicians

A recent study involving a random sample of 650 physicians across 14 specialties at the top 10 hospitals from the 2021 U.S. News & World Report “Best Hospitals” Honor Roll revealed that although approximately 70% of physicians have a social media presence, their actual posting activity is low. In fact, of those with a profile on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, ResearchGate and/or personal websites and blogs, approximately 90% never post. However, Avraham Cooper, MD, from the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, is among a group of physicians who are leveraging their social media presence for tremendous professional advantage.

With more than 87,000 Twitter followers as of October 2022 – follow him @AvrahamCooperMD – Dr. Cooper tweets pulmonary-related and other medical or educational content and pins “tweetorials” on his page, which are a series of short posts about a single topic. He also regularly comments and shares tweets from other accounts. His primary audience is other health care professionals, but he also counts fellow medical educators, patients and patient advocacy groups among his followers.

“I started on Twitter because I thought it would be a great way to stretch and grow my skills as an educator,” he says. “With a limited number of available characters and a remote audience with often short attention spans, I’m forced to really ‘thread the needle’ – I have to figure out the best way to communicate complex concepts in a way that people can easily understand. That ends up helping me be a more efficient teacher in the classroom and at the bedside too.

“It’s also created an incredible community with shared medical interests that’s broadened my own perspective and exposes me to diverse ideas well beyond my local area. I’ve met up with some of my online colleagues at in-person conferences and forged meaningful collaborative relationships and friendships, and I know that there are multiple papers that I wouldn’t have co-authored without my online connections.”

Advice for engaging in a meaningful way on social media as a physician

For physicians interested in developing their own social media footprint, Dr. Cooper has five basic tips for success.

1. Know your why – What’s the purpose of your posts? What are you hoping to learn? There isn’t a right answer, but it’s important to know your end goal so you can curate the right content and connect with the right audience.
2. Find your community – Avoid random scrolling and keep focused on topics that interest you. This not only allows you to connect with the right people, but it makes an enormous platform more manageable.
3. Identify the best platform for you – Explore the options on each social media platform to decide which is the right fit for your vision. As an example, Facebook may be the best way to reach patients, while LinkedIn is more applicable for professional networking. Dr. Cooper finds Twitter to be particularly powerful for sharing ideas with the medical community, but notes that there are creative approaches being taken by physicians on platforms like TikTok as well.
4. Develop a sense of your brand – Your online brand should reflect what you want people to associate with you. What’s your niche or area of expertise? Use this brand to guide what you post, who you follow and what or why you comment and share, always being certain to give credit to others when appropriate.
5. Be careful – There can be drawbacks and risks with social media, especially when controversial topics are discussed or there’s ambiguity in posts and comments that lead to misunderstandings. It’s also crucial to maintain a distinct separation between you “in real life” and your online profile. Importantly, set parameters around social media use. Dr. Cooper tends to post just one or two times a day.

Adding another teaching channel

Building on Dr. Cooper’s success with tweetorials, he launched a podcast in 2020 with two colleagues from Boston, an internist/hospitalist and an internal medicine resident. The Curious Clinicians – described as “a medical podcast that asks ‘Why?’” – already has almost 60 completed episodes exploring why diseases present in certain ways, the mechanisms of treatments used, why the human body functions as it does and more. It even offers continuing medical education credit. “The podcast has been another way to expand the quality and diversity of my teaching,” Dr. Cooper says.

“Both it and my Twitter account have been a great way to reach learners from across the world, and I’m constantly practicing how to present new material. Each opportunity has improved what I share and how I teach here at Ohio State.”

Learn more about innovations in care and research from the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine.