Social media use associated with higher online ratings for shoulder, elbow surgeons
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Key takeaways:
- Increased activity on social media was associated with higher online ratings for shoulder and elbow surgeons.
- However, social media use was not associated with an increased number of reviews.
Published results showed increased activity on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter, was associated with higher online ratings for shoulder and elbow surgeons.
Researchers used the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons physician directory to analyze the relationship between social media activity and online ratings for 385 fellowship-trained shoulder and elbow surgeons in the United States. Researchers collected online physician ratings from Healthgrades, Google reviews and Vitals, according to the study.
Overall, 82 surgeons were classified as social media users and 303 surgeons were classified as non-social media users. Mean age was 48 years for social media users and 51 years for non-social media users.
The most popular social media website was X (11.9%; n = 46), followed by Facebook (9.9%; n = 38) and Instagram (3.4%; n = 13). According to the study, 68 surgeons (83%) used one social media platform, 13 surgeons (16%) used two social media platforms and one surgeon (1%) used all three platforms.
Researchers found social media users had significantly higher physician ratings on Healthgrades and Vitals. However, they found no association between social media use and the number of reviews submitted.
Compared with non-social media users, Facebook users had higher ratings and increased number of reviews on Healthgrades, while X users had higher ratings on Healthgrades and Vitals. Researchers noted surgeons with a greater average number of likes per post on X and surgeons with a greater posting frequency on Instagram had significantly higher ratings on Healthgrades, Google reviews and Vitals.
“This suggests that social media is an important marketing and outreach method for orthopedic surgeons to improve their ratings and patient reviews,” the researchers wrote in the study.
Perspective
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I appreciate the authors' efforts showing a correlation between social media use and improved online ratings. There is no question that online visibility and reputation are important for all orthopedic surgeons in the modern world. That said, it is important not to confuse correlation with causation. The authors acknowledge in their limitations that "we are unable to directly link whether higher reviews on [physician rating websites] PRWs are related to social media use ... " and this is an important limitation for readers to note. While most surgeons widely recognize the value of improving their online ratings, this article does not support the conclusion that social media use would have an impact. I encourage all surgeons to evaluate whether social media use and proactive efforts to improve online ratings would benefit their practice, recognizing these are each separate and independent pursuits.
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