How to tailor your content to each social media platform

So you’re ready to create your social media presence, but you’re not sure which platform is best suited for your needs.

Here are the top five social media platforms available today and the best uses for each.

1. INSTAGRAM

Instagram is one of the most popular photo and video sharing social media platforms available today. Instagram users are mostly “millennials” whose median age ranges between 25 and 34 years old, according to a DataReportal survey. This means that Instagram is a particularly good social media channel for reaching younger patients like refractive surgery candidates (eg, LASIK, PRK, SMILE and/or ICL).

Content creation should be catered toward patient education, patient transformations and storytelling. In particular, personal stories that inspire and motivate tend to perform the best on Instagram.

It is also a great medium for connecting with fellow colleagues, as there is a strong community of doctors on Instagram. Because Instagram is also owned by Facebook, it is easy to enable simultaneous sharing of Instagram posts directly onto Facebook, which caters to a slightly older patient population (most popular for ages 35-44, according to Hootsuite).

2. LINKEDIN

LinkedIn is a more formal social media platform for working professionals. Unlike Instagram where the primary audience might be the general public, LinkedIn is a great resource for networking with colleagues within your own field. Common connections include fellow ophthalmologists, optometrists, ophthalmic practice administrators, technicians and industry colleagues from various ophthalmic companies.

On LinkedIn, you can promote your latest research, advertise specific events and webinars as well as share more personal work-related experiences. In addition to finding job opportunities, LinkedIn provides ophthalmologists an opportunity to showcase their expertise and build up their reputations for the purposes of career advancement.

3. TWITTER

Twitter is a platform composed of pithy “tweets” characterized by a 280-character count limit. Thus, it is important to be short and sweet on Twitter, though attaching photos and videos are also allowed.

While the general Twitter community leans heavily toward political and sometimes controversial commentary, #MedTwitter is a community geared specifically toward healthcare users where common perspectives amongst healthcare professionals can be shared. Thus, similar to LinkedIn, Twitter is a great platform for networking with fellow colleagues, especially when it comes to supporting advocacy issues and sharing one’s work at professional conferences and national meetings.

4. YOUTUBE

YouTube is one of the most popular video-based social media platforms with a wide demographic base. It is also one of the best ways for ophthalmologists to create educational video content for patients and fellow colleagues.

Some of the most popular ophthalmology-related channels include CataractCoach by Uday Devgan, MD, and Shannon Wong, MD. Together, their videos have accumulated several million views.

While YouTube offers the potential to reach larger audiences than some of the other social media platforms, it also requires the greatest amount of time investment due to the amount of video recording and production involved.

5. TIKTOK

TikTok is one of the newest and fastest growing video-based social media platforms. It is one of the most popular channels for “Gen Z” users — TikTok says 60% of its users are 16-24 years old. Videos are short (maximum 3 minutes), entertaining and often accompanied by catchy tunes, special effects and/or textbox captions using features embedded within the app.

Ophthalmologists who have succeeded on TikTok typically create educational content that is casual, engaging and fun. I recently created a video about astigmatism that accumulated more than 1 million views in less than 2 days, which in turn generated several new patient LASIK consults. Thus, TikTok can be a highly efficient avenue for reaching younger patients without requiring a high production investment like YouTube. OM

Dagny Zhu, MD, is a cornea, cataract and refractive surgeon currently practicing as medical director and partner at NVISION Eye Centers in Rowland Heights, Calif. She is active on social media with more than 50,000 followers on Instagram. Follow her @DZEyeMD on Instagram as well as on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and LinkedIn.