Social Media Focus: Learning the language – and finding the time – for social media

I recently had a conversation with a patient who is a digital media consultant. After learning what she did, I remarked: "I hate social media." Great to hear from a member of the Society's Social Media Subcommittee, right? I qualified the remark, saying I dislike it because I feel a constant pressure to post and share to market my practice. It's a pressure that's quickly compounded by feelings of inadequacy when I don't receive "likes," followers or other forms of engagement.

My patient replied, "Treat social media as a journal – it's your tool to share things you want to remember. Then you will enjoy it. It's your space. If you don't like what people say, then unfriend or block the trolls."

This made me think. In general, I'm a private person who's more comfortable sharing thoughts and opinions in magazine columns than via photos, captions and emojis. I've struggled to learn a language that everyone else seems to understand – hashtags, photo-ops, videos, typing on a smartphone, etc. I also struggle because I'm not spontaneous in front of the camera – which is what Instagram is about, right?

Wrong. I joined Instagram about five years ago and I logged-on to Facebook in its infancy. Initially, Instagram seemed to encourage spontaneity – taking pictures at the moment of inspiration – given the visual emphasis of its platform. At that time, my primary frustration was dealing with the required spontaneity. I found it difficult to remember to take a picture and then prepare a caption. Sometimes I would have an idea and think, "That would make a great post," only to forget it by the time I was ready to post.

If you want to make a post with a caption designed to educate your patients, it takes time. It can be difficult to post due to the unpredictable – and busy – nature of our jobs, let alone compose posts on a regular basis. Some plastic surgeons work around this problem by hiring someone to do their social media – I tried that but struggled, because the information I wanted to convey didn't reflect who I was or my brand.

Timely tools

Understanding that businesses were increasingly using Instagram for marketing purposes, Instagram changed its policies in 2018 to allow individuals with business accounts to schedule posts using third-party apps such as Buffer, Hootsuite or Later. Initially, these third-party apps had to perform a workaround due to Instagram's terms of service. The workaround allows you to schedule your post online, and receive a text reminder from the app to actually post to your Instagram account when it was time. Your image and caption would already be complete. This approach is also advantageous because it would allow you to type your caption on your computer – typing a post on the phone can be tedious for some of us.

I recently discovered that now you can schedule posts to both your business Facebook page and Instagram page from your computer using Facebook's Business Suite, which the social media platform launched in September 2020 to help businesses continue to sell their products and reach their customers online during the pandemic. This tool allows you to plan posts for both platforms, including videos, up to six months in advance. Better still, unlike many third-party apps, this platform is free – you just need to link your Facebook and Instagram accounts if you haven't already done so. You can either log-on from your computer using business.facebook.com or, if you are on Pages Manager, you will be prompted to join Business Suite.

Once logged onto Business Suite, you can manage all aspects of both your Facebook and Instagram accounts, including scheduling posts. You also have access to metrics regarding the performance of each post. Other tools included with Business Suite include being able to see messages and comments on your pages across both platforms. With this tool, I've been able to schedule basic posts on a regular basis, plan my captions and schedule videos.

For purists, posts might not feel as authentic when they're scheduled, but the reality is that everyone is scheduling their posts. In my initial naiveté, I thought everyone was posting from their phones – this isn't true, either. Although viewers may see our posts on their phones, they expect the polish and forethought with a post that you can get only from posting on a computer and extensively planning your post.

As I think back to my conversation with my patient, my takeaway is to be authentic on social media. You can use scheduling software to your advantage, schedule routine posts regularly, add unique – and spontaneous – content as desired, the important message remains that you should stay true to your brand.

Dr. Bajaj is a member of the Social Media Subcommittee and is in private practice in Oklahoma City, Okla.