Is oral and maxillofacial surgery lagging behind other specialties on X?

Abstract

Purpose: X, formerly known as Twitter, is a popular social media platform that facilitates oral and maxillofacial surgeons to disseminate a wide array of information to a global audience. The purpose of this study is to identify the top influencers in oral and maxillofacial surgery on X, characterize who they are, and relate their social media influence to academic influence. Methods: We utilized the “BuzzSumo” Application Programming Interface to identify the most followed accounts for the topic search “oral and maxillofacial surgery.” A secondary calculator from the Mention API was used to assign a numerical score of “influence” based on their algorithm. The top 100 accounts associated with the highest engagement scores were characterized by name, status as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon/organization, location, and academic h-index. Results: We found that 52/100 (52%) of users/organizations were oral and maxillofacial surgeons/residents. There was no significant correlation between the h-index and the X engagement score, R2 = 0.8316 (P = 0.088). In comparison, other specialties have a higher percentage of practitioners using X and have found a correlation between h-index and X engagement score. Conclusion: Our results indicate there is a demonstrated need for the creation of more educational content from high-ranking academic sources.