Exploring differences in perceptions around Social Media Competencies: An Expert vs. Frontline User Study

Aim: Scholarly communities increasingly interact using social media (SoMe). This study investigated curricular expectations of expert and frontline SoMe users, with the goal of identifying differences that might inform the development of a curriculum designed to teach clinicians and researchers the effective use of SoMe. Methods: From May 15 to August 28, 2020, we recruited participants via the METRIQ study recruitment protocol. Participants were stratified into “expert” and “frontline” users based on prior experience with SoMe. “Expert” users were defined as having published SoMe research, run SoMe workshops, or through the use of a popular #SoMe account. All others were categorized as “frontline” users. Participants completed a 14-question survey (with 90 sub-questions) regarding the content, skills, and attitudes that they believed should be taught to educators or researchers new to SoMe. Results: In total, 224 users were invited, and 184 users filled out the survey. Experts were more likely to recommend teaching clinicians to use blogs (88% vs 74%), Facebook (46% vs 32%), Instagram (51% vs 34%), Medium (16% vs 4%), Snapchat (15% vs 4%), TikTok (29% vs 12%), and Twitter (97% vs 88%) compared to frontline users. Experts were more likely to recommend SoMe to foster communities of practice (83% vs 66%), disseminate research (80% vs 67%), and promote engagement for knowledge translation (86% vs 74%) compared to frontline users. Conclusions: There are few differences between the SoMe curricular expectations of expert vs. frontline users. These results could inform the creation of resources for teaching clinicians and researchers how to effectively use SoMe.