Dental Blogs, Podcasts, and Associated Social Media: Descriptive Mapping and Analysis

Abstract

BackgroundStudies of social media in both medicine and dentistry have largely focused on the value of social media for marketing to and communicating with patients and for clinical education. There is limited evidence of how dental clinicians contribute to and use social media to disseminate and access information relevant to clinical care.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to inventory and assess the entry, growth, sources, and content of clinically relevant social media in dentistry.MethodsWe developed an inventory of blogs, podcasts, videos, and associated social media disseminating clinical information to dentists. We assessed hosts’ media activity in terms of their combinations of modalities, entry and exit dates, frequency of posting, types of content posted, and size of audience.ResultsOur study showed that clinically relevant information is posted by dentists and hygienists on social media. Clinically relevant information was provided in 89 blogs and podcasts, and topic analysis showed motives for blogging by host type: 55% (49 hosts) were practicing dentists or hygienists, followed by consultants (27 hosts, 30%), media including publishers and discussion board hosts (8 hosts, 9%), and professional organizations and corporations.ConclusionsWe demonstrated the participation of and potential for practicing dentists and hygienists to use social media to share clinical and other information with practicing colleagues. There is a clear audience for these social media sites, suggesting a changing mode of information diffusion in dentistry. This study was a first effort to fill the gap in understanding the nature and potential role of social media in clinical dentistry.

Connecting With Your Dentist on Facebook: Patients’ and Dentists’ Attitudes Towards Social Media Usage in Dentistry

“…The rise of social media has transformed how medical professionals interact with their patients and deliver different types of health care services [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Dentistry has been no exception [ 4 ]. The UK dental market was valued at £5.8bn and rising [ 5 ].…”

“…The UK dental market was valued at £5.8bn and rising [ 5 ]. As with numerous other health profession contexts, social media has been noted to play an increasingly important role in dentistry [ 4 ]. This may create various challenges because, from a professional point of view, dentists must uphold the established image, principles, and procedures [ 6 ].…”

“…Traditionally, dental practices would primarily advertise their services using local yellow pages (ie, telephone directory of local businesses and services) or put the promotion information on a small note in the window of dental surgeries. In the recent twenty years of digital transformation, social media has offered a forum for public communication that dentists can leverage to conduct marketing activities in a timely and cost-efficient way [ 4 , 16 ].…”

“…Acknowledging the importance of social media in marketing and service delivery in dentistry, however, we still lack a clear understanding of patients’ and dentists’ attitudes toward social media usage [ 4 ]. Broad and accelerated access to information creates challenges for dental professionals to manage professional image and their relationship with patients [ 10 , 18 ].…”

Reach of Messages in a Dental Twitter Network: Cohort Study Examining User Popularity, Communication Pattern, and Network Structure

“…Twitter was used to disseminate health information through accounts of ministries of health [9,10] professional associations [7] and local health departments [4]. There are fewer reports about using Twitter in dentistry including investigating the use of Twitter to share information among dental clinicians [11], modeling the impact of third molar experience on quality of life on Twitter [12] and describing antifluoridation activity dominance on social media [13]. Despite the increasing use of Twitter for health information purposes [14], little is known about the spread of health information on it [15].…”