The academic impact of healthcare social media influencers

Healthcare social media influencers are becoming more widely encountered.  What is the association between status as an influencer on social media and impact within the profession?

As has been discussed in previous articles and is widely acknowledged, there has been a substantial increase in health-related content on social media.  This includes the emergence of healthcare influencers across various platforms.  Some of these influencers are healthcare professionals and others are not.  An expectation specific to those who are healthcare professionals is the provision of accurate information.

While there has been an increase in healthcare influencers on social media, what is less well established is the association between this role and a related professional role, specifically impact within the healthcare profession and academic pursuits.  One of the common roles of healthcare professionals is that of an academician, which includes at least in part providing accurate and evidence-based information to other professionals, patients, and the general population.  This could be considered to be the traditional role of a healthcare influencer, prior to its emergence on social media.

In an attempt to better understand the potential relationship between healthcare professional social media influencers and their impact within academia, Corsi et al investigated the top 100 Twitter influencers within the specialty of Urology.  The purpose of their study was to better establish the relationship between social media influencer status and academic influence in this population. 

In their study, the top 100 urology Twitter healthcare influencers were included for analysis.  The majority were male, were in practice, and were board-certified.  Most commonly they were from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom.  The authors conclude that the social media influencers were associated with a “…relatively greater academic impact…” compared to the average Urologist. 

Limitations of the study, as described by the authors, included an inability to independently evaluate the social media proprietary algorithm and analysis of only a single social media platform.  In addition, it would be beneficial to better understand, although beyond the scope of the study, whether or not the data is generalizable to other medical specialties and professionals.

The study does provide important information regarding the relationship between social media and academic influencer status amongst Urologists.  It might be optimistically expected that those healthcare professionals who are more academically proficient would also be more active as social media influencers.  Such a finding would provide evidence that would support a concept that healthcare professional social media influencers are more likely to provide current, accurate and evidence-based content.  The findings of this study support this theory, although further study is required to better understand this emerging role amongst healthcare professionals.

In an ideal situation, healthcare professional social media influencers would provide their audience with accurate and current information, as well as addressing any information which was not evidence-based.  They might also help their audience better understand the latest research findings and learn how to integrate scientific research findings into their lives.  This would utilize an evidence-driven approach such that data would determine the discussed theories and recommendations and would be updated as the emerging evidence dictates.  As health-related information is continually developing over time and is dynamic in nature, there would be acknowledgement of theories which have been revised or discarded based upon current evidence.

House Call Media provides this optimal situation for healthcare professionals through healthcare trained social media management combined with evidence-driven content development.  This combination allows healthcare professionals to develop their social media platform through provision of current, accurate, and evidence-driven evidence and content. 

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REFERENCE

Corsi N, Nguyen D-D, Butaney M, Majdalany SE, Corsi MP, Malchow T, Piontkowski AJ, Trinh Q-D, Loeb S, Abdollah F.  Top 100 Urology Influencers on Twitter:  Is Social Media Influence Associated with Academic Impact?  Eur Urol Focus 2022; epub: https://doi.org/11.1016/j.euf.2022.09.009.