Instagram reels versus image posts in radiology education

In January 2016, we created an Instagram page for radiology education. Numerous publications in different fields have reported that Instagram "reels," introduced in 2020 as a short-form video feature, are more popular than image posts. These findings and our familiarity with Instagram prompted us to analyze our own data to better understand how image posts compared with reels when used in the context of radiology education.

For each post category, metric values were extracted from the Instagram platform and analyzed as continuous variables, reported as medians with interquartile ranges (IQR). Metrics were compared between image categories using the Kruskal-Wallis test, with resulting p-values adjusted for multiple comparisons using the Bonferroni correction. Corrected p-values of less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

We included 128 images and 96 reels in the analysis. Images generally reached a larger audience, with a median of 18,745 [IQR: 13,478-27,243] impressions vs. 11,972 [IQR: 9,310.0-13,844.5] for reels (p < 0.01). Images also tended to be shared more frequently (median 19 vs. 20, p < 0.01), liked more often (median 480 vs. 296, p < 0.01), and saved more by users (median 138 vs. 84, p < 0.01) than reels, respectively. Both images and reels received a similar number of comments, with a median of 3 comments for both (p > 0.99). We also explored the performance differences of image post subcategories. Within images, our "You Make the Call!" (YMTC) questions (n = 23) displayed higher performance metrics across the board than the three other types of image posts combined (n = 105). When compared, the median number of impressions for YMTC images was 36,735 [IQR: 31,343-40,742] vs. 15,992 [IQR:12,774-21,873] for other types of images (p < 0.01). YMTC images were shared more often (median 25 vs. 17, p < 0.01), received more likes (median 809 vs. 445, p < 0.01) and saves (median 206 vs. 119, p < 0.01) than non-YMTC images, respectively. User engagement showed slightly different trends with YMTC reels being the most liked, while quiz reels receiving the most comments and talking clips being the most saved.

Our findings on the use of Instagram in radiology education suggest that static images perform much better than reels. Consequently, we recommend to radiology educators seeking to establish an Instagram presence that using static image posts is an appropriate approach for reaching a radiology audience, particularly with image posts that engage an audience with participatory opportunities such as answering quiz-like questions aimed at making a diagnosis.