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Creating Your Digital Brand: Interviews

Published on: Jan 5, 2021

ACCP Digital Brand

Click below to read interviews from leaders in the clinical pharmacy community!

Taylor Morrisette @TayMorrisette


Since my involvement with a microbiology laboratory during my undergraduate training, the microbial world has held my fascination. Throughout pharmacy school and PGY1 rotations, I have found that my unparalleled interest revolves around any patients with an infectious process due to the complicated nature of their care. I always knew that I wanted to pursue infectious diseases (ID), however, creating a Twitter truly solidified what I wanted to do for the rest of my life as a pharmacist. Towards the end of 2017, I created a personal Twitter account to "pilot" as a social media resource for me to stay current with newly published research or review articles, upcoming conferences, and attempt to become incorporated into the ID community and create my own personal brand. Seeing the passion and love for ID pharmacy that individuals displayed on a daily basis attracted me to this specialty of our profession more and more each day.

 If your current (or future) specialty has a social media presence (which most do; if not, create one!), Twitter is a resource that is guaranteed to keep you up-to-date. I began with following practitioners that I know or have heard of in the ID world. Every morning, the first thing that I do is log into Twitter and see if there is any new i nformation in ID that I can stick in my back pocket to educate myself whenever I get some time. Erin McCreary (a pharmacist with a strong ID social media presence on Twitter) once described it to me as an "information superhighway," and I could not agree more. Twitter has given me access to updates in ID as soon as they occur, whether that be the newest publications or someone Tweeting out important information that was said from the experts from an ID conference that I could not attend. I was even granted the opportunity to write a piece for IDStewardship, a site that is dedicated to promoting pharmacy, infectious diseases, and education. This opportunity only granted itself due to becoming involved with the infectious diseases community on Twitter. Twitter has made me grow as a future ID pharmacist much more than I was expecting.

Another important tip that I would recommend is to include a description of who you are and your specialty (if you have one) or what you hope your specialty to be in the "Bio" section. This way, individuals who interact with your profile will automatically know a little more about yourself. Mine, for instance, is "PGY1 resident at Methodist University Hospital. Lover of pharmacy, infectious diseases, and craft beer." Short, sweet, and to the point; and how could you not follow someone with that amazing biography? Next, I would recommend "Retweeting" and "Favoriting" others' Tweets - I have gotten a handful of followers (I think) based on doing this. Finally, there are a few "Tweetchats" that I have joined. This has helped not only to learn, but also for others in the field of ID to see who I am.

One thing that I wish someone would have told me prior to beginning on this journey is to start by following as many individuals that you can! One of the reasons of creating a social media account for professional reasons is to learn as much as you can and learn on a continued basis through a unique avenue. If you start following someone and do not prefer what they Tweet, there is a simple solution: the unfollow button. Give them a try!

Overall, creating a Twitter to become more incorporated into the world of infectious diseases pharmacotherapy is truthfully one of the wisest things I have done thus far in my career. I have yet to find an avenue that has kept me up-to-date with the literature, introduced me to leaders within the field as Twitter has. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. Take the advice from a guy you have never met: do yourself a favor and create a Twitter to learn on a daily basis and begin to create your digital brand!

Ashley and Brooke Barlow @theABofPharmaC

When we were asked to describe our experience of creating a twitter into words, it was almost impossible to try and depict how this virtual platform has transformed our professional lives.

We were encouraged to get involved in social media from one of our mentors, Dr. Robert Pugliese. As an innovative, forward-thinking individual, Dr. Pugliese enlightened us on how twitter has advanced his professional development, and allows him to remain as a proactive, connected member within the greater healthcare community. His excitement for twitter was beyond infectious, and we were immediately convinced this would be the perfect platform to share our creativity, innovation, and engage our continuous desire for learning. Within minutes of creating our personalized page, we quickly recognized the educational utility that Twitter would provide with the high-quality content delivered from experts, scholarly journals, and professional organizations. At the click of a button; twitter opened a gateway of opportunity to remain at the forefront of the latest clinical research, guideline updates, and advancements within the profession.

From blog posts to webinars, twitter is embedded with endless educational resources that allow us to remain at the top of our learning curve. Reading our feed daily satisfies our hunger for knowledge and ignites us with excitement to discuss emerging literature with our preceptors and students on our clinical rotations. As commuters, scrolling through our twitter feed has become our morning ritual as an effortless way to gain a vast amount of information at the click of a button. This routine strengthened our voices on our APPE rotations to proactively engage in conversations on clinical controversies and therapeutic advancements amongst our medical teams. At the end of each day, we put our two inquisitive minds together to share some our clinical pearls with the twitter world. Although challenging to squeeze within 140 characters (newly increased to 280!), we personalized our posts and shared our unique pharmacology mnemonics and illustrative pictures to help our student community turn complex topics into memorable lessons.

To us, the greatest surprise upon developing our Twitter was recognizing how this platform goes far beyond the tremendous opportunities to learn, but also serves as a communication landscape to network with the utmost influential leaders of the pharmacy profession. The culture invigorated with passion, positive energy, and high spirit made us feel welcomed within this virtual community. The commitment of each member to their area of expertise was evident with their willingness to spark conversations and lend their clinical perspective on the questions we posed. Their influence was not exclusive to our intellectual growth. Each and every member has served as an invaluable mentor to share words of wisdom and tips of advice, ultimately instilling us with confidence that our professional dreams can certainly become a reality. Just as we have all dealt with having limited characters to express our thoughts in a twitter post, we felt this page was not simply big enough to mention the innumerable amount of members on twitter that have impacted our lives, in fact all of the names we have to thank would likely span around the world (probably even two times!). We firmly believe the saying that pharmacists are the most accessible healthcare providers stands true, as the Twitter members not only lend a helping hand to their patients but also make an impact on us as next generation pharmacists through the virtual world.

Here is our advice to students looking to join social media, “Never give up”. When first jumping in, it may seem tempting to judge your success by the number of likes and followers. However, do not be discouraged, as quality trumps quantity and there is no numeric measurement that defines your overall impact on this community. Share your passion, creativity, and let your personality shine as developing your voice will best help build your audience. We encourage students to start your journey on social media early, because within the click of a button, you would not believe the unexpected life changing experience Twitter will provide. It will skyrocket your professional development, help you to establish lifelong friendships, and ultimately empower you to make a difference.

Erin McCreary @ErinMcCreary
  1. What is the optimal frequency of posting to Twitter?
    1. Not an exact science, but I would say less is more. Content become less valuable when you are posting multiple times a day due to notification fatigue. If I am sharing content (publications, news articles, etc) I limit to 1-2 posts per day. If you dedicate a day to reading, you can use platforms like TweetDeck or Hootsuite to schedule content posts throughout the week (this is what we do for the @accpinfdprn account). When replying to other’s tweet and participating in Twitter chats, I don’t really think about frequency. Some people post 100+ times in a Twitter chat! When I began participating in these chats, I wasn’t trying to “create a digital brand,” I just wanted to learn. It’s amazing what doors can be opened to you just by listening, and slowly but surely finding your voice to participate.
  2. How do you decide the content of your posts?
    1. If I see or read something that I think is cool or that I am interested in, I will post it. If I come across a publication or achievement of a friend, I am definitely going to share it and tag them to celebrate his or her success. I’m also a big fan of sending random, positive vibes out into the world so I’ll share things about people helping people or stewardship success stories. Now that I am a preceptor, I post things that I would want to teach my students or residents. I’ll share notes or conversations from rounds that I hope others can relate to, since we’re all in this together. Emojis and pictures make good tweets, as they are more visually appealing and make people more likely to interact with the post. With pictures, you can tag up to 10 people in order to share content rapidly and increase exposure. I add hashtags when appropriate as well.
  3. How do you balance maintaining this digital presence with your work as a clinician?
    1. It might be shocking…but I don’t spend that much time on Twitter. Throughout the course of an average work day, I’ll spend ~30 minutes engaging. (Disclaimer: professional conferences are a different story and I am posting throughout most of the sessions to help share information. Thank goodness for portable phone chargers). But for a work day, I usually scroll through in the morning before work and at the very end of the day. (Side note: these are typically the best times to post as well since most people are scrolling through social media during these hours). It also sounds silly… but my engagement on Twitter has enhanced my development as a clinical pharmacist. I am exposed to knowledge and literature more readily, and it has increased my professional network. People I met through Twitter are now good friends that I can text or call to run a complex patient by them or discuss ideas for national organizations.
  4. How do you go about connecting with like-minded specialists on social media, and do you feel that this network helps build your own presence?
    1. A few years ago, national organizations started promoting conference sessions on Twitter and using conference hashtags. I started using Twitter as a passive user to follow these conferences, major journals, a few pharmacists I knew, and major news outlets. I remember interviewing for PGY1 programs and when they asked me how I kept up with literature, I discussed how I had recently gotten into Twitter and was amazed by this “information superhighway” that is literally tailored to your interests. Then, I served on the IDPRN Executive Committee in 2016 when we launched the @accpinfdprn Twitter account. Working with other committee members, I reached out to several ID pharmacists to ask them to participate in Twitter chats and things naturally evolved from there. I cannot emphasize enough that social media does not replace genuine human interaction. I would meet people in person at conferences or through mutual colleagues, and then follow them on Twitter. Social media is an incredible tool to sustain these connections that would have been simply an introduction years ago. I gained exposure to other infectious diseases specialists based on people who liked, retweeted, or replied to the pharmacists I followed. It is crazy how visible Twitter can make you. Now, I do “meet” people on Twitter first and then when I connect with them at conferences, it feels like we’ve been friends for years. Sounds kind of crazy, but such is life in 2018. I have actually initiated a few research collaborations through Twitter as well!
  5. What are your thoughts on using a particular social media platform for both personal and professional use (i.e. do you think you can use Twitter for both or should you use, for example, Facebook for personal use only and Twitter professionally)?
    1. This answer will be unique to each individual, and there’s no right answer. Personally, I started using Twitter to learn and have maintained it as a strictly professional environment. Recently, I started sharing some Auburn and Steeler football things (because how can you not?) but otherwise, professional forum for me. I use Facebook for my social network (mostly because my mom likes to see pictures) but I must admit in the past year or so I have been pretty inactive on every social media outlet except Twitter. Whether you are posting a “personal” or “professional” thing – you always need to be professional / appropriate. The dangerous thing about Twitter is your 280 characters are a brief snapshot that can be quoted/copied/retweeted and completely taken out of context. It is an incredibly powerful tool that we have to make sure we continue to use for good.
Brent N. Reed @brentnreed
  1. What is the optimal frequency of posting to Twitter?
    1. You’ll find different statistics posted for this all over the web but I’ve always been told that it’s more important to post regularly — for example, it’s better to tweet once daily than it is to tweet five times one day and then none for the rest of the week. Micro-blogging platforms like Twitter make it easier to stay active and there are tools available to improve regularity of posting. For example, social media dashboards like HootSuite allow you to pre-schedule tweets and Facebook posts ahead of time — that way, if you know your weeks get super busy and it’s difficult to Tweet original content, you can just set aside some time on the weekend to schedule a few tweets throughout the week to keep your account active. The frequency of posting will also depend on the type of content. For blogs and website posts, these usually take a lot longer to generate original content, so posting once every 1-2 weeks is more typical. Blogging takes a lot more planning and time, and I’ll admit that this is usually the first of my activities to “go” when I get busy. A quality blog post takes a few hours to write so you’ve got to commit to setting aside time to do it or it will fall by the wayside. But more importantly than the frequency/quantity of the posts is the quality. For example, five retweets of someone else’s material (unless you are commenting on it and adding to the discussion) is far less impactful than five original tweets that start a conversation. I also think that replies on other users’ tweets/posts are also under-valued — sometimes that’s where I pick up the most new followers.
  2. How do you decide the content of your posts?
    1. I think this has to be a conscious decision. One of the major attractions to platforms like Twitter and RSS feeds is that it allows people to tailor the information they receive. People will follow you if they are genuinely interested in what you have to say, so in order to develop an audience, you have to be consistent in the content you post about and develop an audience (which requires “knowing” your audience). Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t post about multiple subjects, but just don’t expect to get a lot of clinicians following you if 75% of your tweets are about your favorite sports team and only 25% are about clinical pharmacy. It’s also OK if your content evolves over time but you just have to be OK with losing followers if they are no longer interested in your new content. Every 6-12 months I try to set aside some time and determine what my “social media” presence is going to be like — for example, how much of it is going to be cardiology-related (and within cardiology, how much will be heart failure) vs. other topics I’m interested in. Sometimes I lose followers when I make a transition but I’ve just learned to be OK with it because I would probably do the same thing.
  3. How do you balance maintaining this digital presence with your work as a clinician?
    1. Consuming has never been a problem for me but I think the real challenge is being able to post/actively contribute. This past fall was not a good example, as my responsibilities at work really limited my time online. I think the key is figuring out how social media integrates into your work. For example, in my previous job, I took the bus every day and that’s when I would schedule my posts for the rest of the day. Now I try to schedule 15-20 minutes every day to schedule posts. If maintaining an online presence is important to you, you have to devote time to it just as you would any other aspect of your life (e.g., physical activity, relationships, etc.).
  4. How do you go about connecting with like-minded specialists on social media, and do you feel that this network helps build your own presence?
    1. The easiest way to do this is to see who the people you are following follow (and who follows them). It also helps to see who they are engaging in conversations with online. Beyond that, if there are specific hashtags that apply to your interest areas (for example, #CardioEd, #FOAMed, etc.), those are also a good way to identify like-minded specialists. I would definitely say that helps build your own presence but only if you engage/interact with those individuals (i.e., just following them may not be enough).
  5. What are your thoughts on using a particular social media platform for both personal and professional use (i.e. do you think you can use Twitter for both or should you use, for example, Facebook for personal use only and Twitter professionally)?
    1. I definitely partition out my social media use. Twitter is all professional/information/news. I rarely post anything personal on there and if I do, it’s still tangentially related to work. I don’t post much on Facebook anymore — it’s mostly just a way for me to see what my friends/family are up to. When I do post, it is almost always professional (or at least something that I wouldn’t mind my patients/peers/students seeing). I just don’t think there are any guaranteed safeguards on privacy when it comes to social media, so you should expect that anything “personal” you post could be potentially seen by your peers/colleagues. I use Instagram as my “personal” social media platform, where I just post photos of things that interest me (travel, scenery, etc.). I also only follow my friends on there because those are whose photos I want to view (no news, bands, celebrities, or anybody trying to “sell” me something). I think it’s nice to be able to open up Instagram and not be bombarded with news and just enjoy what other people are enjoying in their lives. There are some people who do a good job of posting personal and professional information online but I feel these are the exceptions and not the rule. The people who really seem to build a genuine following are those who are posting informative/interesting content at regular intervals and/or contribute to the conversations that others are having.
Debbie Goff @idpharmd
  1. What is the optimal frequency of posting to Twitter?
    1. Daily.
  2. How do you decide the content of your posts?
    1. I believe you need a strategy to tweeting. I find journal articles that have relevance to the people I want to engage and educate. For example, I will find a study in Clinical Infectious Diseases on surgical site infections. I know surgeons do not read ID journals so they will never see this article. I will post a tweet with a link to the pubmed abstract and picture of the article in the tweet. I include a few surgeons twitter handles who are influential amongst other surgeons. They typically will retweet my tweet to their followers.
  3. How do you balance maintaining this digital presence with your work as a clinician?
    1. Busy people find time for things that provide value. Once you see the value and power of twitter it’s easy to find time to jump on it every day.
  4. How do you go about connecting with like-minded specialists on social media, and do you feel that this network helps build your own presence?
    1. When you start on Twitter connecting with like minds is very easy. For example, if you are in infectious diseases you can search for someone you know and trust and see who they follow. The real value is to connect with people that are not like you. People with different skills sets. This is how you can build a powerful network of experts outside your area of specialization. People that will help you grow in other ways. For example, I met a physician from the UK who was posting his work on analyzing the reach of tweets. I reached out to him to learn more about this. We ended up doing a study together. To date I have never actually met him. I connected with a surgeon in Chicago. I saw he was publishing work on the microbiome. I reached out to him and he invited to me to speak at University of Chicago. I followed a Digital Health Care innovator John Nost He’s not a healthcare provider but an expert on how to deliver better health care. He writes for Forbes and has 54K followers! We connected and next thing I know we did a program for Contagion (a medical CME company) on Twitter for Antibiotic Stewardship https://www.contagionlive.com/publications/contagion/2018/december/social-media-impact-antimicrobial-stewardship-programs-drug-resistant-bacterial-infections. This is my best example of the value of following people UNLIKE you. I have learned so much from John Nost More importantly, when he retweets my tweet, it reaches 54,000 people that I don’t know. I am trying to teach the responsible use of antibiotics to everyone. His followers allow my tweet to be seen by more people. It’s so powerful!
  5. What are your thoughts on using a particular social media platform for both personal and professional use (i.e. do you think you can use Twitter for both or should you use, for example, Facebook for personal use only and Twitter professionally)?
    1. I use Facebook for personal use and Twitter professionally. I do not mix the two.
Alexander Flannery @AFlanneryPharmD
  1. What is the optimal frequency of posting to Twitter?
    1. I think at least once weekly is a nice low bar to try and reach for posting from your professional Twitter account. You can re-tweet or like as you browse Twitter on a daily basis, but I do think your social network is following you to hear your thoughts on some occasions, not necessarily re-tweets or liking someone else’s posts all of the time.
  2. How do you decide the content of your posts?
    1. Whatever I’m interested in at the moment in my professional life generally drives the content of my posts. It might be a recent study that was just published that I read, it might be a scathing editorial or commentary, a unique clinical event that happened in the unit that day, anything related to biostatistics in clinical medicine, something related to my role as a residency program director or teacher, or sometimes something off the radar that I have found a way to link back to my professional life.
  3. How do you balance maintaining this digital presence with your work as a clinician?
    1. Being a clinician, and particularly in the intensive care unit, keeps me busy. Between clinical work and the rest of my schedule, I rarely have time to do much more than scroll through Twitter on the elevator for about 30 seconds. I usually will browse Twitter in more detail as I am walking into work, and then again when I am home in the evening. I think many of us who are full time clinicians probably have similar patterns in regard to this timing. In the past, I have used apps that let you time your posts, such as Hootsuite, to better time any posts (i.e. time it for 8 AM the next morning rather than midnight when I am browsing). I don’t know this for a fact, but my suspicion is that midnight posts get buried under everything else and aren’t seen by as many people. I also use a few different devices (iPhone, iPad, computer) to post things so that I can be somewhat flexible with the platform and not necessarily tied down to one device.
  4. How do you go about connecting with like-minded specialists on social media, and do you feel that this network helps build your own presence?
    1. I will follow plenty of people in the field (either in critical care or in areas of interest such as biostatistics or epidemiology) that I do not personally know if they are posting thought-provoking commentary on my clinical or research areas of interest. Connecting in terms of following is one concept that may not pay dividends aside from you getting to follow their posts. However, engaging these individuals in professional ways, such as commenting on posts or posing questions to them, is where I think the benefit really begins to form. It will help you build your own presence from an exposure standpoint to some extent, but more so, gets you interacting with others that can sometimes lead to offline conversations and projects. This expansion of your professional network is perhaps the most valuable part of professional social media engagement.
  5. What are your thoughts on using a particular social media platform for both personal and professional use (i.e. do you think you can use Twitter for both or should you use, for example, Facebook for personal use only and Twitter professionally)?
    1. I personally like the separate use of professional and personal social media, or even having two different Twitter accounts for those different uses. I think personal things can certainly blend into your professional Twitter account, particularly as it relates to challenges you’re facing that somewhat relate to your professional life, but it’s not something for me where I would include pictures of my family or where I was traveling to, etc. In terms of professional social networking, I think most people follow others on Twitter to follow their professional thoughts and posts, not necessarily their personal adventures. As long as the posted content was balanced between professional and personal, I don’t think it would cause me to necessarily un-follow someone posting both.