Hello, and welcome to a presentation on ways to use social media to educate patients and the public. I'm student Dr. Rebecca Wolf, President-elect of the Student Osteopathic Medical Association. I'm student Dr. Stephanie Koblitz, Vice President and Speaker of the House-elect for the Student Osteopathic Medical Association. We do not have any financial disclosures for this presentation. As student doctors and physicians, we have the ability to touch the lives of many. It is through trusted relations with our patients that we can become partners in their health. When it comes to health communications, research has shown that clear, concise health messages repeated frequently by trusted individuals are the most effective means to support actionable health steps. Social media is one way to broaden communication in order to reach a wider breadth of socioeconomic backgrounds and at-risk populations. As a popular form of communication, social media can be an extremely cost-effective, quick, and simple means to reach a vast amount of people. As an adjunct to traditional patient care, social media can be a tool to enhance communication and augment care. From prevention screening to daily reminders of healthy lifestyle steps, social media can help direct patients in a healthy direction when delivered with a clear, concise message. We want to make the healthy choice the easy choice. Over the years, social media use has grown in the healthcare genre. We witnessed a rapid escalation of social media use in healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic. As you can see, social media use can range from sharing health-related information to mitigating misinformation, disinformation, and much more. The CDC uses multiple channels of social media. Their aim is to expand health message reach, increase access to media content, improve audience participation, and advance transparency to improve health communication. Keeping these goals in mind as we work to create our own social media communications is important. On a further note, three key attributes make social media an effective means of health communication. A personalization of content that is tailored to meet the target audience's needs can provide salience and inspire patients' calls to action. Friendly and relevant content that is accessible in various formats and contexts has far-reaching effects and helps to bridge gaps in outreach. Lastly, participating with other credible partnering organizations and working groups that are capable of contributing content in a meaningful way is another beneficial means to reach larger target audiences. Today, there are many social media tools and platforms to choose from. There is no right or wrong. The key is to use what works for you and your target audience. People are looking for information that is digestible in a way that meets their lifestyle and time demands. Social media posts are a simple and effective means to disseminate health information. These examples from the CDC are free to download and can have a far-reaching impact when delivered to your patients who are most at risk. Our aim is to deliver a clear and concise message with repetition. A simple message by a trusted physician can save lives and inspire patients to take action. Having the ability to tailor your message and the language specific to your target audience's needs is an important factor. It is imperative that patients find value and meaning in your message that will ultimately propel them to take appropriate action. Many free resources can be found on the CDC's website in various languages. There are 11 simple steps to think about for effective communication. First and foremost, you must know and understand your audience. What do you want to accomplish with your message? What are your audience's needs? What is the best social media tool or platform to reach this specific audience? How will you define and evaluate the effectiveness of your message? These are all things to consider when making your communication strategy. Finally, we want to evaluate the communication and determine ways to improve it for next time. Another great way to enhance your knowledge and practice in the social media genre is to review recent articles in the DO. Over recent years, the DO has been featuring articles on various social media topics, such as helping you understand which social media platform is correct for you or ways to build your DO brand. These articles provide useful tips and information from practicing DOs who have experience using social media. Learning best practices from well-experienced peers is an integral way to jumpstart your social media communications. As always, maintaining your professionalism while using social media is a must. Practical simple steps can be taken to mitigate any misuse of social media. These eight points of conduct will help to avoid any potential conflicts. We are here to inform our patients' communities and the greater population. With such power comes a responsibility to communicate accurately and appropriately. A final note of communication for today is to announce the AOA's launching of the Osteopathic Medicine Social Media Toolkit. This toolkit provides additional physician resources, links to condition-specific social media resources, and research articles in this genre. Please visit www.osteopathic.org to obtain further knowledge and review additional resources on effective ways to use social media to educate your patients and the public. Thank you for participating in this presentation and for all that you do each day to improve your patients' and many others' health and well-being. We hope you enjoy the remainder of the DO Day programming.

social media

patient education

osteopathic physicians

health communication

Social Media Toolkit