Social Media for Physicians: A Working Playbook

Start with why, not the camera

In July, The New York Times found hundreds of AI-generated "doctors" selling supplements. People want a real relationship with a clinician they trust, and the fakes simulate exactly that. That is why they sell.

A professional brand has three layers. Production sits on the outside: filming, editing, posting. Everyone asks about it and it matters least.

Presentation sits underneath, the craft of speaking clearly. The why sits at the bottom. Get it straight and the other two get easy.

So answer it honestly, even if the answer is money. Starting without an answer is the problem.

The platform map

Longer formats demand deeper attention, and deeper attention means higher intent.

Short clips catch people in random discovery. Long form holds the people making decisions, and health decisions run for years.

Reach versus depth

Play to your asymmetry

My results across platforms are wildly uneven, and the pattern follows my personality. I like going deep, so long-form works and the numbers show it.

Fast, funny, 40-second content takes real skill I do not have. I stopped pretending otherwise.

Do not copy anyone's mix, mine included. Pick the format you will still be making in year three.

Do it yourself first

The tempting shortcut is hiring an agency on day one. Some charge $30,000 a month, and none can sell you taste.

Your first 90 days, in order:

• Write down your why. One honest paragraph, and every later decision checks against it.
• Pick one format. Long-form if you like depth, short-form if you are quick and visual. Weekly.
• Make the first ten yourself. Mine were terrible and are deleted now.
• Build taste on purpose. Collect 20 to 50 accounts you trust, then study what they cut.
• Only then, hire. An editor before an agency, and only for steps you understand.

If you do hire

Help comes in tiers, and each tier sells something different. Production help makes things. Strategy help decides what is worth making. PR is a third product entirely: earned coverage in outlets you do not own.

U.S. ranges from mid-2025 pricing surveys and salary data:

The weekly engine

The physicians still publishing in year three are rarely the most talented. They have the lowest weekly cost of production.

Mine runs in a fixed order:

• Research, with AI doing the heavy lifting, held to today's evidence.
• Narrative: what makes this worth anyone's attention, sometimes the story of the discovery.
• Batch the recording, then hand the cut to an editor.

Where AI fits

I am very pro-AI and use it every day. The rule that makes it work: delegate the middle of the process, never the judgment.

The fakes at the top of this page are AI too, and that cuts in your favor. As synthetic content floods the feed, a verifiable human expert becomes the scarce thing. AI lowers the cost of everything around your judgment while raising its value.

Costs and timeline

From my own spending and what colleagues report. Ranges, not promises.

Who to learn from

Professional creators have written the craft down. Take it from them, then run it through clinical judgment.

• Ali Abdaal: a physician turned YouTube educator. His free videos cover most of what paid courses teach.
• Justin Welsh: the reference for a one-person LinkedIn and newsletter system.
• Content Playbook by Kleo: why specific LinkedIn posts worked, structure by structure.
• Creator Science by Jay Clouse: interviews and experiments on how creators grow.
• SoMeDocs: Dr. Dana Corriel's network for physicians building in public.

The rules

Everything above is optional. These are not.

• Real patient stories are fine. Recognizable patients are not. Change every detail that does not carry the lesson, until the patient could not recognize themselves. Still recognizable? Written consent or drop it.
• Educate, do not treat. Move anything case-specific into a visit.
• Stay inside the evidence. The public cannot filter an overgeneralized study for you.
• Disclose every financial relationship, and skip any pitch for something you do not use.
• Employed? Read the policy before the first post.

Own your audience

Every platform audience belongs to the platform. Start a newsletter before you know what you are building.

Then give that audience somewhere real to go: your practice, a program, a service. I built mine before deciding, and the doors opened anyway. Deciding earlier just shortens the path.

Watch the conversation

This playbook came out of a livestream with Sunita Mohanty, CEO of Ultralight, recorded August 12, 2026.

We covered the three layers, which platforms actually convert, and what the first year really costs.