Abstract
Purpose :
Social media is a powerful source of ophthalmologic information for the public. Ophthalmology-related content is especially pervasive on Instagram (IG), the most popular photo-sharing platform with over 112 million monthly active users. The objective was to identify top-performing ophthalmology posts on IG and characterize their content and features.
Methods :
A 36 term hashtag list was curated composed of common ophthalmic diagnoses and procedures (e.g. #LASIK, #cataract, etc.). Related posts were searched on IG from Sept 1 to Oct 1, 2020. IG uses an engagement-based algorithm to rank posts based on the number of likes and comments, giving high-ranking posts greater reach. The top 9 posts for each term were identified. Posts unrelated to ophthalmology were excluded. Each post was analyzed for engagement level (e.g. total likes), media format (e.g. picture, video), content type (e.g. education, self-promotion, etc.), and the poster’s background (e.g. credentials, country, seniority, etc.). Engagement level ratios (ER) for each post were calculated as the number of likes to number of followers per poster account. ANOVA analyses were performed.
Results :
This was a cross-sectional epidemiological study where 1,763,898 posts were identified. 324 posts met the inclusion criteria. Most posts were created by ophthalmologists (36.4%), followed by patients (29.0%), and optometrists (20.1%). Overall, ophthalmologists (0.077), optometrists (0.091) and patients (0.087) created posts with similar ER (p>0.05). While most content was educational (63%), self-promotional posts (0.182) were the most effective in terms of ER followed by personal experience (0.096) and education (0.081) (p=0.08). Photos were the most common media type (84.8%) followed by videos (7.9%) and graphics (7.3%). Curiously, video posts received the highest ER (0.234), followed by graphics (0.102), and photos (0.087) (p<0.05). When analyzing the top 100 posts ranked by ER, slit lamp photos were most engaging (0.204), followed by white coat photos (0.175) and photos of ophthalmologists (0.171) (p<0.05).
Conclusions :
Most ophthalmic content on IG is created by non-ophthalmologists. The performance and reach of each post vary significantly based on factors related to post format and content type. Ophthalmologists have the opportunity to make a larger impact on social media by creating more engaging content, especially in areas related to eye education.
This is a 2021 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.