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Introduction
The pervasiveness of social media, in its various platforms, has drastically increased in recent years and has influenced a large audience in medicine. Particularly for the field of general surgery, social media is a modality that allows for network creation through this dissemination and discussion of information online and in real time. The use of social media by general surgeons varies widely from promotional content and distribution of current research topics to networking and mentoring. Previous authors have recently recommended social media as a necessary part of a surgeon’s practice in order to actively participate in a rapidly changing field that relies on current research and guidelines. 1 Among the social media platforms available, Twitter is reported to be the most popular among members of the medical community. 2 In 2018, over 2000 health care providers were reported to tweet over twice per day and to have at least 300 followers. 3 Twitter allows for these conversations among colleagues to be promoted, viewed, and joined by learners and experts alike.
A social media influencer is an individual who creates impact through interactions and posts, usually regarding a specific topic. An influencer may disseminate content targeted toward those involved in their respective field. The influencer can also encourage dialog and discussion regarding the content.4,5 Additionally, influencers are important for those outside their respective fields and even the medical community, as social media is a common source of information for clinicians, nonmedical participants, and patients.2,6 An influencer’s impact can be measured through connectedness (number of users following and users followed) and the effect the posts create in the topic community (likes, retweets, visibility). This resembles an academic researcher’s h-index, which was designed to measure not only publication productivity but also the impact of the research in the community.4,7,8
Twitter is a versatile tool for disseminating information within a community and has recently become a platform for sharing current research in medicine.4,5 In fact, social media has been reported as a tool to encourage one’s research transmission by increasing views and engagement in the community.9,10 This has been referred to as “altmetrics,” or alternative metrics and may be considered as an adjunct to a researcher’s h-index.4,7 Several surgical...