The top 100 social media influencers in neurosurgery on Twitter

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study is to identify the top 100 social media influencers in Neurosurgery on Twitter, describe who they are, and correlate their social media influence with their academic influence. Methods: Twitter influence scores for “neurological surgery” and “neurosurgery” were gathered in August 2021 using Right Relevance software. The top 100 names with the highest scores were recorded along with their Twitter handle name, training background, board certification, location and academic h-index. Results: The top 100 Twitter influencers in neurosurgery are presented. 85% are neurosurgeons, 9% neurologists, 4% neuroradiologists, and 2% non-physicians. 81.8% of influencers were located in the United States while the remaining influencers were international. The average h-index among the top 100 Twitter influencers (n = 100) was 27.6 ± 19.7 with a median of 24 (range 1–104). The Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was 0.35 between Twitter “influence” rank and h-index with p = 0.0003. All practicing physicians within the United States were board certified by their respective national committees. Conclusions: This study shows that the topic Twitter influencers in neurosurgery are predominantly board-certified neurosurgeons who practice within the United States. This study also demonstrates a correlation between social media influence and academic influence.

Keywords

• Social media
• Neurosurgery
• Twitter
• Influencer
• Top 100