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Surgeons using Facebook do not track its impact on practices

Plastic surgeons who use Facebook believe it has an overall positive impact on their practices, but few track any objective outcomes within their business to support this, according to research in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

A survey was distributed to two groups of plastic surgeons: 500 with professional Facebook pages and 500 without Facebook pages. One hundred twenty-three surveys were completed for a 12.3% response rate.

The mean age of Facebook users was 49.2 years. The majority (81%) were in solo practice.

A “positive” impact was reported by 43% of users and “very positive” by 14% of respondents.

Users agreed that Facebook’s positive impact included increasing practice exposure, facilitating positive patient feedback and providing a low-cost means of advertising.

Only 6% of users felt Facebook had no noticeable impact on their practice.

New patient website visitors from Facebook were not tracked by 21% of users. Fifteen percent of Facebook users did not track the exact number of unique visits to their professional websites resulting from their Facebook pages.

A total of 53% attributed less than 5% of their new patients to Facebook and 17% thought no patients came from Facebook. Conversely, 21% of users believed that over half of Facebook patients did ultimately schedule surgery.

The main reason 71% of Facebook nonusers cited for not using Facebook was feeling that they did not have enough time. Most nonusers expected the impact of Facebook to be “neutral” if they were to start using it, but 23% thought its impact would be positive and 8% expected a negative outcome.

Nonusers believe the disadvantages would include undesirable advertising solicitations and that time spent on Facebook would take away from time spent caring for patients.

According to the researchers, “The perceived positive impact of Facebook may be attributable to intangible outcomes such as improved patient education, communication and ultimately satisfaction.” Until more physicians track objective outcomes from their Facebook pages, actual business response is largely unknown. -by Abigail Sutton

Disclosure: The researchers reported no relevant financial disclosures.