Receiving advice from individuals with a strong pharmacy social media presence are essential for creating your pharmacy brand. Below are interviews conducted with pharmacists with expertise not only in their respective specialties, but also on creating a social media presence.
- What is the optimal frequency of posting to Twitter?
- Not an exact science, but I would say less is more. Content become less valuable when you are posting multiple times a day due to notification fatigue. If I am sharing content (publications, news articles, etc) I limit to 1-2 posts per day. If you dedicate a day to reading, you can use platforms like TweetDeck or Hootsuite to schedule content posts throughout the week (this is what we do for the @accpinfdprn account). When replying to other’s tweet and participating in Twitter chats, I don’t really think about frequency. Some people post 100+ times in a Twitter chat! When I began participating in these chats, I wasn’t trying to “create a digital brand,” I just wanted to learn. It’s amazing what doors can be opened to you just by listening, and slowly but surely finding your voice to participate.
- How do you decide the content of your posts?
- If I see or read something that I think is cool or that I am interested in, I will post it. If I come across a publication or achievement of a friend, I am definitely going to share it and tag them to celebrate his or her success. I’m also a big fan of sending random, positive vibes out into the world so I’ll share things about people helping people or stewardship success stories. Now that I am a preceptor, I post things that I would want to teach my students or residents. I’ll share notes or conversations from rounds that I hope others can relate to, since we’re all in this together. Emojis and pictures make good tweets, as they are more visually appealing and make people more likely to interact with the post. With pictures, you can tag up to 10 people in order to share content rapidly and increase exposure. I add hashtags when appropriate as well.
- How do you balance maintaining this digital presence with your work as a clinician?
- It might be shocking…but I don’t spend that much time on Twitter. Throughout the course of an average work day, I’ll spend ~30 minutes engaging. (Disclaimer: professional conferences are a different story and I am posting throughout most of the sessions to help share information. Thank goodness for portable phone chargers). But for a work day, I usually scroll through in the morning before work and at the very end of the day. (Side note: these are typically the best times to post as well since most people are scrolling through social media during these hours). It also sounds silly… but my engagement on Twitter has enhanced my development as a clinical pharmacist. I am exposed to knowledge and literature more readily, and it has increased my professional network. People I met through Twitter are now good friends that I can text or call to run a complex patient by them or discuss ideas for national organizations.
- How do you go about connecting with like-minded specialists on social media, and do you feel that this network helps build your own presence?
- A few years ago, national organizations started promoting conference sessions on Twitter and using conference hashtags. I started using Twitter as a passive user to follow these conferences, major journals, a few pharmacists I knew, and major news outlets. I remember interviewing for PGY1 programs and when they asked me how I kept up with literature, I discussed how I had recently gotten into Twitter and was amazed by this “information superhighway” that is literally tailored to your interests. Then, I served on the IDPRN Executive Committee in 2016 when we launched the @accpinfdprn Twitter account. Working with other committee members, I reached out to several ID pharmacists to ask them to participate in Twitter chats and things naturally evolved from there. I cannot emphasize enough that social media does not replace genuine human interaction. I would meet people in person at conferences or through mutual colleagues, and then follow them on Twitter. Social media is an incredible tool to sustain these connections that would have been simply an introduction years ago. I gained exposure to other infectious diseases specialists based on people who liked, retweeted, or replied to the pharmacists I followed. It is crazy how visible Twitter can make you. Now, I do “meet” people on Twitter first and then when I connect with them at conferences, it feels like we’ve been friends for years. Sounds kind of crazy, but such is life in 2018. I have actually initiated a few research collaborations through Twitter as well!
- What are your thoughts on using a particular social media platform for both personal and professional use (i.e. do you think you can use Twitter for both or should you use, for example, Facebook for personal use only and Twitter professionally)?
- This answer will be unique to each individual, and there’s no right answer. Personally, I started using Twitter to learn and have maintained it as a strictly professional environment. Recently, I started sharing some Auburn and Steeler football things (because how can you not?) but otherwise, professional forum for me. I use Facebook for my social network (mostly because my mom likes to see pictures) but I must admit in the past year or so I have been pretty inactive on every social media outlet except Twitter. Whether you are posting a “personal” or “professional” thing – you always need to be professional / appropriate. The dangerous thing about Twitter is your 280 characters are a brief snapshot that can be quoted/copied/retweeted and completely taken out of context. It is an incredibly powerful tool that we have to make sure we continue to use for good.
- What is the optimal frequency of posting to Twitter?
- You’ll find different statistics posted for this all over the web but I’ve always been told that it’s more important to post regularly — for example, it’s better to tweet once daily than it is to tweet five times one day and then none for the rest of the week. Micro-blogging platforms like Twitter make it easier to stay active and there are tools available to improve regularity of posting. For example, social media dashboards like HootSuite allow you to pre-schedule tweets and Facebook posts ahead of time — that way, if you know your weeks get super busy and it’s difficult to Tweet original content, you can just set aside some time on the weekend to schedule a few tweets throughout the week to keep your account active. The frequency of posting will also depend on the type of content. For blogs and website posts, these usually take a lot longer to generate original content, so posting once every 1-2 weeks is more typical. Blogging takes a lot more planning and time, and I’ll admit that this is usually the first of my activities to “go” when I get busy. A quality blog post takes a few hours to write so you’ve got to commit to setting aside time to do it or it will fall by the wayside. But more importantly than the frequency/quantity of the posts is the quality. For example, five retweets of someone else’s material (unless you are commenting on it and adding to the discussion) is far less impactful than five original tweets that start a conversation. I also think that replies on other users’ tweets/posts are also under-valued — sometimes that’s where I pick up the most new followers.
- How do you decide the content of your posts?
- I think this has to be a conscious decision. One of the major attractions to platforms like Twitter and RSS feeds is that it allows people to tailor the information they receive. People will follow you if they are genuinely interested in what you have to say, so in order to develop an audience, you have to be consistent in the content you post about and develop an audience (which requires “knowing” your audience). Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t post about multiple subjects, but just don’t expect to get a lot of clinicians following you if 75% of your tweets are about your favorite sports team and only 25% are about clinical pharmacy. It’s also OK if your content evolves over time but you just have to be OK with losing followers if they are no longer interested in your new content. Every 6-12 months I try to set aside some time and determine what my “social media” presence is going to be like — for example, how much of it is going to be cardiology-related (and within cardiology, how much will be heart failure) vs. other topics I’m interested in. Sometimes I lose followers when I make a transition but I’ve just learned to be OK with it because I would probably do the same thing.
- How do you balance maintaining this digital presence with your work as a clinician?
- Consuming has never been a problem for me but I think the real challenge is being able to post/actively contribute. This past fall was not a good example, as my responsibilities at work really limited my time online. I think the key is figuring out how social media integrates into your work. For example, in my previous job, I took the bus every day and that’s when I would schedule my posts for the rest of the day. Now I try to schedule 15-20 minutes every day to schedule posts. If maintaining an online presence is important to you, you have to devote time to it just as you would any other aspect of your life (e.g., physical activity, relationships, etc.).
- How do you go about connecting with like-minded specialists on social media, and do you feel that this network helps build your own presence?
- The easiest way to do this is to see who the people you are following follow (and who follows them). It also helps to see who they are engaging in conversations with online. Beyond that, if there are specific hashtags that apply to your interest areas (for example, #CardioEd, #FOAMed, etc.), those are also a good way to identify like-minded specialists. I would definitely say that helps build your own presence but only if you engage/interact with those individuals (i.e., just following them may not be enough).
- What are your thoughts on using a particular social media platform for both personal and professional use (i.e. do you think you can use Twitter for both or should you use, for example, Facebook for personal use only and Twitter professionally)?
- I definitely partition out my social media use. Twitter is all professional/information/news. I rarely post anything personal on there and if I do, it’s still tangentially related to work. I don’t post much on Facebook anymore — it’s mostly just a way for me to see what my friends/family are up to. When I do post, it is almost always professional (or at least something that I wouldn’t mind my patients/peers/students seeing). I just don’t think there are any guaranteed safeguards on privacy when it comes to social media, so you should expect that anything “personal” you post could be potentially seen by your peers/colleagues. I use Instagram as my “personal” social media platform, where I just post photos of things that interest me (travel, scenery, etc.). I also only follow my friends on there because those are whose photos I want to view (no news, bands, celebrities, or anybody trying to “sell” me something). I think it’s nice to be able to open up Instagram and not be bombarded with news and just enjoy what other people are enjoying in their lives. There are some people who do a good job of posting personal and professional information online but I feel these are the exceptions and not the rule. The people who really seem to build a genuine following are those who are posting informative/interesting content at regular intervals and/or contribute to the conversations that others are having.
- What is the optimal frequency of posting to Twitter?
- Daily.
- How do you decide the content of your posts?
- I believe you need a strategy to tweeting. I find journal articles that have relevance to the people I want to engage and educate. For example, I will find a study in Clinical Infectious Diseases on surgical site infections. I know surgeons do not read ID journals so they will never see this article. I will post a tweet with a link to the pubmed abstract and picture of the article in the tweet. I include a few surgeons twitter handles who are influential amongst other surgeons. They typically will retweet my tweet to their followers.
- How do you balance maintaining this digital presence with your work as a clinician?
- Busy people find time for things that provide value. Once you see the value and power of twitter it’s easy to find time to jump on it every day.
- How do you go about connecting with like-minded specialists on social media, and do you feel that this network helps build your own presence?
- When you start on Twitter connecting with like minds is very easy. For example, if you are in infectious diseases you can search for someone you know and trust and see who they follow. The real value is to connect with people that are not like you. People with different skills sets. This is how you can build a powerful network of experts outside your area of specialization. People that will help you grow in other ways. For example, I met a physician from the UK who was posting his work on analyzing the reach of tweets. I reached out to him to learn more about this. We ended up doing a study together. To date I have never actually met him. I connected with a surgeon in Chicago. I saw he was publishing work on the microbiome. I reached out to him and he invited to me to speak at University of Chicago. I followed a Digital Health Care innovator John Nost He’s not a healthcare provider but an expert on how to deliver better health care. He writes for Forbes and has 54K followers! We connected and next thing I know we did a program for Contagion (a medical CME company) on Twitter for Antibiotic Stewardship https://www.contagionlive.com/publications/contagion/2018/december/social-media-impact-antimicrobial-stewardship-programs-drug-resistant-bacterial-infections. This is my best example of the value of following people UNLIKE you. I have learned so much from John Nost More importantly, when he retweets my tweet, it reaches 54,000 people that I don’t know. I am trying to teach the responsible use of antibiotics to everyone. His followers allow my tweet to be seen by more people. It’s so powerful!
- What are your thoughts on using a particular social media platform for both personal and professional use (i.e. do you think you can use Twitter for both or should you use, for example, Facebook for personal use only and Twitter professionally)?
- I use Facebook for personal use and Twitter professionally. I do not mix the two.
- What is the optimal frequency of posting to Twitter?
- I think at least once weekly is a nice low bar to try and reach for posting from your professional Twitter account. You can re-tweet or like as you browse Twitter on a daily basis, but I do think your social network is following you to hear your thoughts on some occasions, not necessarily re-tweets or liking someone else’s posts all of the time.
- How do you decide the content of your posts?
- Whatever I’m interested in at the moment in my professional life generally drives the content of my posts. It might be a recent study that was just published that I read, it might be a scathing editorial or commentary, a unique clinical event that happened in the unit that day, anything related to biostatistics in clinical medicine, something related to my role as a residency program director or teacher, or sometimes something off the radar that I have found a way to link back to my professional life.
- How do you balance maintaining this digital presence with your work as a clinician?
- Being a clinician, and particularly in the intensive care unit, keeps me busy. Between clinical work and the rest of my schedule, I rarely have time to do much more than scroll through Twitter on the elevator for about 30 seconds. I usually will browse Twitter in more detail as I am walking into work, and then again when I am home in the evening. I think many of us who are full time clinicians probably have similar patterns in regard to this timing. In the past, I have used apps that let you time your posts, such as Hootsuite, to better time any posts (i.e. time it for 8 AM the next morning rather than midnight when I am browsing). I don’t know this for a fact, but my suspicion is that midnight posts get buried under everything else and aren’t seen by as many people. I also use a few different devices (iPhone, iPad, computer) to post things so that I can be somewhat flexible with the platform and not necessarily tied down to one device.
- How do you go about connecting with like-minded specialists on social media, and do you feel that this network helps build your own presence?
- I will follow plenty of people in the field (either in critical care or in areas of interest such as biostatistics or epidemiology) that I do not personally know if they are posting thought-provoking commentary on my clinical or research areas of interest. Connecting in terms of following is one concept that may not pay dividends aside from you getting to follow their posts. However, engaging these individuals in professional ways, such as commenting on posts or posing questions to them, is where I think the benefit really begins to form. It will help you build your own presence from an exposure standpoint to some extent, but more so, gets you interacting with others that can sometimes lead to offline conversations and projects. This expansion of your professional network is perhaps the most valuable part of professional social media engagement.
- What are your thoughts on using a particular social media platform for both personal and professional use (i.e. do you think you can use Twitter for both or should you use, for example, Facebook for personal use only and Twitter professionally)?
- I personally like the separate use of professional and personal social media, or even having two different Twitter accounts for those different uses. I think personal things can certainly blend into your professional Twitter account, particularly as it relates to challenges you’re facing that somewhat relate to your professional life, but it’s not something for me where I would include pictures of my family or where I was traveling to, etc. In terms of professional social networking, I think most people follow others on Twitter to follow their professional thoughts and posts, not necessarily their personal adventures. As long as the posted content was balanced between professional and personal, I don’t think it would cause me to necessarily un-follow someone posting both.