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Is a Picture Really Worth More than a Thousand Words? Which Instagram Post Types Elicit the Best Response for Radiology Education

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Abstract

Since its 2010 launch, Instagram has rapidly risen to become one of the leading social media in the world, with more than one billion monthly users. Within the field of radiology, perhaps because of the image-weighted nature of the platform, several prominent organizations host Instagram accounts, including the Radiological Society of North America, American Roentgen Ray Society, American College of Radiology, and the American Board of Radiology. We started our own Instagram account in January 2016 because of the popularity of this social media platform among medical students. Our website contains over 260,000 images and is aimed at educating physicians, technologists, and nurses around the world on radiology, with an emphasis on body computed tomography. Given our varied selection of radiology resources, we were curious as to which posts perform best on Instagram and set out how to best characterize the interest in these posts. Our results point to an approach that can aid radiology educators who use social media, particularly Instagram, in producing popular content.

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Author information

Author notes

  1. Lilly Kauffman, Edmund M. Weisberg, John Eng and Elliot K. Fishman contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 601 North Caroline Street, JHOC 3262, Baltimore, MD, 21287, USA

    Lilly Kauffman, Edmund M. Weisberg, John Eng & Elliot K. Fishman

Authors
  1. Lilly Kauffman
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  2. Edmund M. Weisberg
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  3. John Eng
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  4. Elliot K. Fishman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Edmund M. Weisberg.

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Summary sentence:

Of the types of images and video available, users of our Instagram account preferred static CT images, which are helpful information for radiology educators aiming to optimize their use of social media, particularly Instagram.

Take-home points:

• Instagram is one of two primary photo-oriented social media giants.

• Within the field of radiology, perhaps because of the image-weighted nature of the platform, several prominent organizations host Instagram accounts, including the Radiological Society of North America, American Roentgen Ray Society, American College of Radiology, and the American Board of Radiology.

• We started our own Instagram account in January 2016 because of the popularity of this social media platform among medical students and recently set out to determine how to best characterize the interest in our Instagram posts.

• Based on our data, we conclude that static images, both in the form of case studies and medical illustrations, are choices more popular within the radiology community on Instagram.

• Our results can aid radiology educators who use social media, particularly Instagram, in producing popular content.

• It takes considerable time to create medical illustrations and videos. While it is easy to procure a selection of CT scans, it is also, apparently, what users want to see.

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Kauffman, L., Weisberg, E.M., Eng, J. et al. Is a Picture Really Worth More than a Thousand Words? Which Instagram Post Types Elicit the Best Response for Radiology Education. J Digit Imaging 33, 1053–1057 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-020-00344-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10278-020-00344-y

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