The future of science communication is already on social

Nature recently called for more scientists and HCPs to post on social media, where approximately 65% of people worldwide consume video and, consequentially, get their news.1

A lot of this content is the reason I wince when I watch health videos outside my usual algorithm: a wave of this ‘news’ is made by creators who spread vaccine misinformation, wellness pseudoscience, myths and sham treatments.

A study Nature referenced looked at 100 of the most popular TikTok videos on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and found more than half to be misleading.2 Together, the videos had more than 280 million views.

This upwards trend won’t change. Patients will keep turning to social platforms for answers before, between and after appointments. What can change is whether what they find helps them better understand their health and communicate with their HCPs.

You can’t compete on post volume alone. However, surveys show people follow health advice from social media even if it contradicts advice from their HCP,3 so there’s a pressing job to be done.

As health marketers and communicators, our job is to become much better at understanding information gaps, creating useful resources and ensuring trustworthy information reaches people repeatedly. This starts with diagnosing the problem with the information people are or aren’t finding.

Talk to HCPs about the questions and misunderstandings patients bring into consultations. Use social listening and search behaviour to understand how people describe their concerns, what they look for around appointments and where misinformation or content gaps persist. Read the comments that make you uncomfortable to understand the good, bad and ugly of online health discussions.

If you don’t understand the problem, you can’t provide the right information.

Next, rethink how information is delivered. Most pharma teams are operating in isolated moments. One linear launch, with four to six posts timed around a milestone, then back to planning for the next.

People need repeated opportunities to find accurate information. That’s partly because people don’t change behaviour after seeing a message once, but it’s also because social media doesn’t stand still. Every second brings new videos, new posts and new voices shaping how people understand health. If your contribution is four posts around a milestone and then silence, it’s unrealistic to expect that information to remain visible or influential months later.

Ongoing content series, creator partnerships and educational content built around common patient questions create multiple opportunities for people to encounter trustworthy information when they need it. Changing how we publish is part of the answer, but we also need more scientific voices on social media.

One of my favourite accounts is @tobytheneuroscientist. Toby shares regular no-nonsense explainers about dementia while completing his PhD in the renowned Neurogenetics Lab, led by Professors Sir John Hardy and Henry Houlden. He makes complex science accessible and also answers comments with thoughtful videos.

We need more people like Toby. Not every scientist, clinician or researcher wants to become a content creator. That’s fine. But companies can support building the next generation of scientific communicators through training and partnerships that give more credible voices the confidence and skills to engage effectively online. Helping them raise the bar for scientific communication is crucial to the future of fact-based communication.

Finally, share, share, share your insights and learnings. Patients and HCPs aren’t compartmentalising where they get their information, so you shouldn’t either. Medical Affairs teams can use education gaps to anticipate patient questions. Communications teams can refine their messaging. Paid teams can identify opportunities to amplify the information patients need most.

As Nature said when announcing their move to TikTok: ‘The future of science communication is not an article like this.’

If social media is going to improve health understanding, rather than undermine it, we need to make scientific information easier to find and support more evidence-based voices online.

References
1. Newman, N, Arguedas, A R, Robertson, C T, Nielsen,
R K & Fletcher, R. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025 (Reuters Institute, 2025).
2. Yeung, A, Ng, E & Abi-Jaoude, E. Can. J. Psychol. 67,
899–906 (2022).
3. eMarketer. US Digital Health 2025: The 2025 Healthcare Comsumer (eMarketer, 2025).