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Social Media and the practice of Aesthetic Surgery in a major teaching hospital.
Ali Charafeddine MD, Carlos Ordenana MD, Sayf Al-deen Said MD, James Zins MD.
CCF
2019-02-15
Presenter: Ali Charafeddine MD
Affidavit:
This work was never submitted or presented at any national or international conference
Director Name: James Zins
Author Category: Fellow Plastic Surgery
Presentation Category: Clinical
Abstract Category: Aesthetics
Introduction: Social media has become an integral marketing tool for the practicing plastic surgeon. We hypothesize that the efficacy of SM as a marketing effort is dependent on a number of factors including perspective patient age and operation type.
Methods: 107 consecutive new patients seeking cosmetic procedures were asked to fill a "Social Media" questionnaire. Patients were divided into 3 groups based on age: <40, 40-60 and >61 years old.
Results: 10 males and 97 females participated (mean 58.6 years). The majority of patients had a social media account (75.7%), with Facebook (53/107) and Instagram (23/107) being the two most commonly used platforms. Social media and internet search were responsible for a small minority of visits (10/107). The most common reason for visit was referral by a family member or a friend (50/107), followed by the name of the institution where the senior author (JEZ) practices (28/107).
The older age groups were much less likely to use social media as their decision maker for the plastic surgery consultation. Patients <40 years were more likely to watch plastic surgery procedures on social media (p <0.001), believed that social media help educate them on their procedure (p=0.141), and that social media can be a reliable tool to assess the skills of a plastic surgeon (p=0.011).
Conclusion: Social media is much less likely to be a practice builder in the older age patient population. Targeted marketing depending on patient age and operation type should be seriously considered when designing a marketing plan.
