The social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has served as one of the best networking tools for our generation. Despite recent changes, including the rebrand to X, this platform continues to be a useful resource for members of the medical community. Understanding how to navigate X to find and interact with your community is key to reaping its benefits. How do we harness this resource in medicine, especially as students?

First, let’s break down the basics. What are the hashtags #MedTwitter and #OphthoTwitter? #MedTwitter is the universal hashtag to attract physicians, medical students, and others in medicine to your posts. #OphthoTwitter is the ophthalmology equivalent. Other common hashtags in these communities include #MedEd, #Ophthalmology, #Ophtho, or #Ophthomatch2024.  These hashtags are useful for gaining traction on posts related to medical news, achievements, and breakthroughs that ophthalmologists want to share with others in the field. They can be added to your own posts to attract views, or they can be clicked on or typed into the search bar to filter the posts in your timeline.

What is the best way to utilize X for maximum professional benefit?

IDENTIFY YOUR PURPOSE

Think about your objective for using X and consider what may be the best way to reach it within the website’s format. This isn’t LinkedIn, or Instagram, or Facebook. X is a different platform with targeted uses. Posts (formerly tweets) are limited to 280 characters, making the platform less ideal for long, detailed posts that may make more sense on other platforms. A post on X is a way to share a thought, distribute a useful link, or start a conversation.

Your purpose may also be determined by your career stage. For students and residents, X is great platform to network with peers and mentors, share research, and generally have fun. For more established physicians, it may be a place to share work or insights on new advances in the field.

X AS A NETWORKING TOOL

X is a relatively informal networking tool, which can be beneficial. It is a place where established physicians seem open to sharing and receiving information in a less formal manner. They may share a quick, two-line post about their own research or about open positions—all on a public platform where anyone can read and react. As students, we should take advantage of these reduced barriers between the younger and more established generations of ophthalmology.

Social media has made communication across generations more fluid, and we need to understand this and use it to our advantage. Normalize networking over X’s timeline and direct messages. You can reach out to a mentor or leader in the field over X to talk about their work or to seek mentorship. It’s not foolproof, but it’s easier to reach out on social media versus a formal email or call, and this initial message may lead to a more formal communication.

THE INFAMOUS ‘RETWEET’

For those of us who grew up with Twitter, it’s common to say “retweet” in response to comments and ideas we agree with. How does the idea of retweeting (now known as reposting) translate to #MedTwitter? This is where the concept of community comes back. #MedTwitter and #OphthoTwitter are just virtual communities, and reposting is a way of showing support. If someone posts a groundbreaking paper you think is cool, repost it. If someone shares information about an upcoming information session or webinar that you want to attend, repost it so others who may be interested can see it. And, of course, if someone posts something funny or relatable, repost it. Essentially, reposting is a passive way of showing support and building a broader audience for one another.

FROM VIRTUAL TO IN-PERSON

Use X as a tool to bridge the gap between social media and in-person meetings. X is a great real-time resource, meaning people post their activities and whereabouts in real time, versus Instagram or LinkedIn, which are often filled with posts shared in retrospect. There is a great way to take advantage of this at conferences. Often, program directors or residency program accounts will post about being at certain conferences, and even post their talks and poster sessions. You can follow along with their activity and more easily find and connect with the people you want to meet. (One way to find out who is posting about the meeting is to search the event’s hashtag, eg, #AAO2023.) This is a more personal way to make an impression at a large meeting, whereas otherwise you may have no idea where to go and with whom to talk and network.

CONCLUSION

Whether you refer to it as X or Twitter, the platform and its #MedTwitter and #OphthoTwitter communities are here to stay. Although not originally intended for the health care field, the social media platform has shown to be a valuable tool, and those of us in medicine and ophthalmology specifically can benefit from its many uses.