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Professional and Personal Development

(001) #otolaryngologists on TikTok: Analyzing Trends over the past Year

Monday, October 2, 2023
2:45 PM – 3:45 PM East Coast USA Time

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Noor-E-Seher Ali, MD

    Resident
    Southern Illinois University School of Medicine
    Springfield, IL, United States

    • Senior Author(s)

  • DC

    Dana L. Crosby, MD MPH

    Chair/Program director
    Southern Illinois University School of Medicine
    Springfield, Illinois, United States

Disclosure(s):
Noor-E-Seher Ali, MD: No relevant relationships to disclose.
Dana L. Crosby, MD MPH: No relevant relationships to disclose.


Introduction: TikTok is currently the fastest growing video-sharing social media platform. While it is increasingly being used as a source for medical education, sparse data exists about the presence of otolaryngology content and influencers. The objective of this study was to characterize otolaryngology TikTok influencers and related content and examine utilization trends over a single year.

Methods: This was a cross sectional study of TikTok content performed between 1/24/22-1/25/22 and 1/19/23-1/20/23. Otolaryngology influencers were identified on TikTok by ENT related hash tags. Only US based board-certified otolaryngologists with at least 5 posts and 20 followers were included in our study. Demographic data was collected and a thematic analysis of the 5 most recent posts at the time of data extraction was performed.

Results: In 2022, 34 otolaryngologist influencers met our inclusion criteria, and this number increased to 104 in 2023. The majority of influencers were male and worked in a private practice setting. Comparing 2022 to 2023 respectively, 6/34 (17.5%) vs 11/104 (11%) influencers were general otolaryngologists, 2/34 (6%) vs 4/104 (4%) were laryngologists, and 25/34 (76.5%) vs 87/104 (84%) were facial plastic and reconstructive surgeons. The number of followers ranged from 26 to 1.9 million, with a mean of 43293 followers. Among the 34 originally identified influencers, there was an average growth of 272% of followers over the year. Thematic analysis showed patient/surgery related content (42% in 2022 vs 44% in 2023) and educational (36% vs 22%) content comprised the majority of posts followed by other content (13% vs 18%), personal content (7% vs 11%), and self-promotional (2% vs 5%) content.

Conclusions: The number of Otolaryngologist influencers on TikTok have tripled in under a year. Facial plastic and reconstructive surgeons continue to utilize TikTok more than other subspecialties. The majority of posted content is patient/surgery related and educational. This study demonstrates the potential of TikTok to serve as a tool for otolaryngologists to engage with the public and provide educational content.