Social Media in Aesthetic Dermatology: Analysis of the Users Behind the Top Filler Posts

Within the aesthetic realm, the influence of social media is quite prominent, with a growing percentage of patients using this technology to seek out health care recommendations and education.

To ascertain the most accurate representation of what our patients may encounter on social media, we sought to characterize the top posts on the most popular visually-based social media platform (Instagram).

We queried Instagram with variations of hashtags related to filler to determine which hashtags had the greatest number of posts associated with them. We then reviewed the top 100 posts associated with the top 9 hashtags, making note of whether the poster was a physician or nonphysician and whether an off-label procedure was performed or discussed.

Most (85.6%) of the 900 reviewed posts were written by nonphysicians, and most (84.6%) of the posts focused on off-label procedures were posted by nonphysicians. Among the physician posters, the most common specialties were Plastic Surgery and Family Medicine, followed by Dermatology.

At a time when patients are increasingly turning to social media for health care recommendations and education, most "top" content related to soft tissue augmentation is being provided by nonphysicians, many of whom are performing off-label procedures.