ESGE and Social Media in the 21st Century

As ESGE celebrates its 60th birthday, it is hard to imagine that at its birth, the Internet did not exist and neither did social media, both of which became mainstream in the early 2000s. Now, more people on the planet have Internet and social media access than those who do not [1]. Social media has revolutionised how individuals and organisations communicate. Content, ranging from education to entertainment and personal views can be instantly shared from the convenience of a smartphone, enabling interactions that can create virtual communities without borders. Like many individuals who have adopted social media in their late 40s, ESGE has been no different! ESGE embraced social media relatively early on, starting with a Facebook account in 2011 (now with 16K followers), followed by Twitter (X) in 2017 (@ESGE_news; 9.5K followers), LinkedIn (9.1K followers) and YouTube in 2019 (@esgeendoscopy8242; 3.8K subscribers). These accounts serve to disseminate and publicise ESGEs’ scientific activity, publications, guidelines and educational content in real time to a global audience. This is possible due to the coordinated efforts of the ESGE Office, in particular Alexandra Mace who oversees the social media working group.

In 2020, a social media working group was established by the ESGE Executive Committee and the ESGE Young Endoscopist (EYE) committee to streamline management of ESGE social media channels. By 2022, the current ESGE president Ian Gralnek (@iangralnek) had a vision to formalise ESGE’s social media content and a working group was created and chaired by Dr. Manmeet Matharoo. The ESGE social media working group ([Fig. 1]) has been curated with equity, diversity and inclusion in mind and now comprises 11 members from 7 countries. This has helped expand ESGE’s international reach and to open communication beyond the English language. The strategic objectives of the ESGE social media working group align with the ESGE strategic plan and consist of: a) developing, supporting and promoting ESGE activities and educational content worldwide through social media, b) to use social media to augment circulation of ESGE-derived updates/alerts/scientific documents, c) to propose and respond to endoscopy-related topics raised on social media, presenting an authoritative and representative ESGE opinion and d) to advertise and promote ESGE-delivered and ESGE-endorsed courses. In the spirit of collaboration, ESGE has joined forces with affiliated societies for campaigns such as #ColorectalCancerAwarenessMonth and #ESGEGreenTips which share and showcase high yield tips for sustainable practice from the ESGE Green Endoscopy working group. To keep up with 21st century trends, posts will focus on high quality endoscopy video content, particularly those focused on education and training and topics that are relatable to a broader audience including the public at large as part of efforts to reach out to the wider community, while respecting patient confidentiality and maintaining professionalism.

Fig. 1 Members of ESGE Social Media Working Group 2024.

Endoscopy journal which is affiliated with ESGE also has a respectable social media following on Facebook (37K followers), Twitter (@endoscopyjrnl; 9K followers), YouTube (@endoscopythieme; 1.4K subscribers) and most recently, LinkedIn (1K followers), led by Ioannis Papanikolaou. These showcase state-of-the-art endoscopy content and techniques (e-videos), aiming to enhance the visibility and impact of publications to both the scientific community and the authors. The journal now invites authors to provide their X handles and a short social media abstract for content promotion. Graphical abstracts, i.e. a single figure which summarises the essence of a paper, have now been incorporated into the Endoscopy journal strategy to aid social media dissemination.

ESGE Days, ESGE’s annual congress, is now celebrated as the premier endoscopy conference in Europe and is a focal point on the ESGE calendar. The power of social media enhances our ability to share the latest scientific abstracts, key endoscopy developments and technological advances live and in real-time from the conference across the globe for endoscopists engaging remotely. At ESGE Days 2022 and 2023, ESGE has also organised workshops and “How to guides” to welcome new users to social media ([Fig. 2]). To cover the 60th Jubilee, ESGE endeavours to increase social media presence to share the very best of the scientific content and endoscopic advances from #ESGEDays2024 in Berlin, Germany, to enhance the conference experience for attendees, and to impart some of the atmosphere at the Jubilee celebration. This is a moment to reflect on the very significant advances that have been made in endoscopy for the benefit of our patients, and to look to the future to strive to improve and innovate our practice.

Fig. 2 Social Media Workshop at ESGE Days 2023.

We hope that you can join us through our social media channels, and we look forward to growing the conversation with the global endoscopy community!

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

• References

• 1 Internet and social media users in the world 2024. Statista. Accessed March 03, 2024 at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/

Publication History

Article published online:
27 June 2024