Creating Clinical Research Impact Through Social Media: Five Easy Steps to Get Started

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this tutorial is to provide a brief tutorial on how to get started with creating clinical impact of research through the use of varied social media channels. Method: We summarize the literature and provide examples for creating social media content for clinical research impact. Results: We describe a five-step process for creating clinical impact: (a) identify your goal or purpose of creating impact for a specific project, (b) identify your target audience and match it to a social media platform, (c) study benchmark posts made by active users and influencers on your social media outlet of interest, (d) create novel and engaging content, and (e) share content and track responses. Conclusions: Creating clinical impact of research through social media does not have to be overwhelming or time consuming and is an important part of disseminating research evidence to help bridge the research-to-practice gap. Readers will be able to share their work on social media to begin creating clinical impact because of reading this tutorial.