Hello, everyone. Welcome to this Society of Critical Care Medicine Leadership Empowerment and Development or LEAD program on how to become a social media influencer. My name is Tony Gerlach and I'm a professor and specially practiced pharmacist at The Ohio State University and I can be found at SICU PharmD on Twitter. Besides determining what platform of social media you would like to use, such as Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok, I think one of the most important things to ask oneself is, do you want to be more active or passive with your social media professionally? And more importantly, what is your passion? Is the reason you want to be a social media influencer because you want to educate others, you want to advocate for others, or some might want to entertain others? And specifically for education, which is where I do most of my social media, is I tend to focus on other healthcare professionals. But you also might consider the lay public as well. And I do do some advocacy and I have also worked a little bit on some disease states such as C. diff, but I also might be for professions or social causes, which is a great way to be on social media. And finally, some of us are very entertaining and to entertain healthcare professionals in public is another common reason people are on social media. Now, once you decided what your passion is and why you want to be on social media, what are some of the key steps? And I think one of the most important things is really sharing your knowledge. And I think depending on who your target audience is, how you share that knowledge is going to be a little bit different, especially for healthcare professionals versus the lay public. Another key step that we should know about is networking with other influencers, as well realizing, especially with social media, the world is very small. And I think it's important to know that when you do network with others, you need to do it both inside and outside your profession and where you practice. I, for example, am a surgical ICU critical care pharmacist. So obviously, I network with other pharmacists, especially critical care pharmacists, but I also network with a lot of surgeons and a lot of people in infectious disease and nutrition support in a variety of areas. And I think it's a great way for us to make the world a smaller place. And in fact, from some of those, I've actually gotten some publications out of them. And then finally, I think we need to be more active and engage in conversations, and not just only reply to others, but be an active participant in any sort of journal clubs or chats as they're out there, and especially education to the lay public. And finally, I would like to talk about pitfalls to avoid with social media. First and foremost, I really think we always have to be mindful of patient-specific information and mindful of HIPAA. Social media is not, and I repeat, not the place to share patient-specific information. In addition, I always live by the rule that posts are permanent. And even though we can take them down, some people might see them and screenshot them. And I think all we have to understand is the entertainment industry to see that these posts are permanent. And if you are in a passionate form, maybe it's best to wait before you respond. And along with that is always remember the golden rule. Really treat others how you want to be treated, and make it the most positive experience you can. Although I've had mostly positive results, greater than 99%, sometimes there's a lot of other reasons. And just treat people like you would in a hospital setting with respect. Now, thank you, and I hope this will help you become a social media influencer.

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