Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jan 10, 2020
Date Accepted: Mar 5, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Mar 12, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Specialized Social Media Team Increases Online Impact and Presence: The Journal of Neurosurgery Experience
ABSTRACT
Background:
Social media use continues to gain momentum in academic neurosurgery. To increase journal impact and engage more broadly, many journals have turned to social media to disseminate research. The Journal of Neurosurgery Publishing Group (JNSPG) established a dedicated, specialized social media team (SMT) in November 2016 to provide targeted improvement in digital outreach.
Objective:
The goal of this study was to examine the impact of the JNSPG social media team.
Methods:
This study analyzes metrics, including impressions, engagements, retweets, likes, profile clicks, and URL clicks, from consecutive social media posts from the JNSPG’s Twitter and Facebook platforms between 2/1/2015 and 2/28/2019. Standard descriptive statistics were utilized.
Results:
Between February 2015 and October 2016, when a specialized SMT was created, 170 tweets (8.1 tweets/month) were posted compared to 3,220 tweets (115.0 tweets/month) between November 2016 and February 2019. All metrics significantly increased, including the impressions per tweet (1,646.3±934.9 vs. 4,605.6±65,546.5, P=.01), engagements per tweet (35.2±40.6 vs. 198.2±1,037.2, P<.001), retweets (2.5±2.8 vs. 10.5±15.3, P<.001), likes (2.5±4.0 vs. 18.0±37.9, P<.001), profile clicks (1.5±2.0 vs. 5.2±43.3, P<.001), and URLs clicks (13.1±14.9 vs. 38.3±67.9, P<.001). Tweets that were posted on the weekend compared to weekdays had significantly more retweets (9.2±9.8 vs. 13.4±25.6, P<.001), likes (15.3±17.9 vs. 23.7±70.4, P=.001), and URL clicks per tweet (33.4±40.5 vs. 49.5±117.3, P<.001). Between November 2015 and October 2016, 49 Facebook posts (2.3 posts/month) were sent compared to 2,282 posts (81.5 posts/month) between November 2016 and February 2019. All Facebook metrics significantly increased, including impressions (5,475.9±5,483.0 vs. 8,506.1±13,113.9, P<.001), engagements (119.3±194.8 vs. 283.8±733.8, P<.001), and reach (2,266.6±2,388.3 vs. 5,344.1±8,399.2, P<.001). Weekend Facebook posts had significantly more impressions per post (7,967.9±9,901.0 vs. 9,737.8±19,013.4, P=.03) and a higher total reach (4,975.8±6,309.8 vs. 6,108.2±12,219.7, P=.03) than weekday posts.
Conclusions:
Social media has been established as a crucial tool for the propagation of neurosurgical research and education. The implementation of the JNSPG specialized social media team had a demonstrable impact on increasing the online visibility of social media content.
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