Engagement of Plastic Surgery Content on TikTok and Instagram

Abstract

Background: Social media is a powerful tool for plastic surgeons to connect with patients and to post both educational content and advertisements for their practices. TikTok is a platform that has gained popularity in the last 5 years, particularly for plastic surgeons. Although several studies have assessed engagement with plastic surgery content on other platforms, no studies have analyzed engagement on TikTok and compared engagement levels to those of Instagram.

Methods: This study identified and evaluated the posts of the top 10 most popular plastic surgeons on TikTok and Instagram using the search term "#plasticsurgery." The number of likes, views, and comments, and the surgical procedure covered in their 25 most recent posts was noted at 2 separate time points. Posts were categorized into the following categories: before-and-after, celebrity, private life, comedy, advertisement, or education. Engagement was calculated by totaling the number of views, likes, and comments.

Results: A total of 1000 posts across both TikTok and Instagram were analyzed, 293 of which discussed specific procedures. TikTok had significantly higher total average engagement (438,261 per post) than Instagram (275,565 per post) (P = 0.03). Celebrity (P = 0.007) and abdominoplasty (P = 0.002) content received more engagement on Instagram than on TikTok.

Conclusions: These data suggest that TikTok may have surpassed Instagram in user engagement with plastic surgery posts. However, Instagram may have higher engagement for posts in specific content categories. Plastic surgeons may use these data to maximize engagement by identifying the best platform for posts of different content.