THANK YOUUUUUU! It finally happened; my instagram account reached 10000 followers. I could not have done it without your support. Yeah, you. You’re one of those 10,000. Thank YOU for following along in my craziness.
First of all, I know there are plenty of Instagram accounts with many more followers than mine, but I have created a niche type account which is mostly specific to Critical Care. There aren’t many dedicated Intensivists in this world, unfortunately. To me, this means that 100000 people/followers on Instagram have the potential to learn what I am learning and be able to either utilize this information directly, or share it with the medical community they work with. There’s nothing that makes me happier than a nurse or respiratory therapist who makes a great suggestion on how to help me better manage the patient. That shows interest and passion in what they are doing. In addition, when those suggestions are made, it also means that I have created an environment where the staff is not fearful of what I am going to say or think about them. After all, I say plenty of silly things just to keep the mood light and lively in an environment which is filled with critically ill patients.
If I teach one medical student about fluids, and they go on to take care of thousands of patients throughout their career and potentially train other students and residents along the way. Exposing 10,000+ people to the same article at once is far more powerful. It would be an exponential effect and you bet that that keeps me incredibly motivated. I am not in academics although I obviously love to teach. At this juncture of my career, I struggle with giving up control, it’s the Intensivist in me where I want to be in charge and managing as much as humanly possible. This medium of teaching on social media provides me with a release. I get immediate feedback from you all. In addition, I provide the citations for everything I post so that you don’t, as you shouldn’t, trust me. Sorry if the articles aren’t always free. After all, I frequently say that I’m not someone who actually does clinical research and do not take credit for being the one who discovers anything I post. I have one publication and, for the moment, that’s all I am going to have.
Ulterior motives
As some of you already know, I am going to be speaking at several conferences this year. I have not disclosed that publicly just yet, though. No, it’s not Chest, ATS, nor SCCM, but I will be sharing the stage with certain notable clinicians who regularly present at those conferences. I have pursued this opportunity to speak because it is something I have never done before and I really wanted to push myself to be very uncomfortable. A new challenge. Do I need to do this? Absolutely not. But presenting at these conferences has lit a fire underneath my behind because I don’t need to bring my A game, rather, I need to bring my A++ game. My reputation is on the line, I will be standing in front of hundreds of clinicians influencing their practice. It will be in front of a live audience of several hundred individuals who paid some good, hard earned, money for some CME credits. I do not get to hide behind my Instagram account. My information will be crucial to the care of their patients and their communities. That’s a big challenge! Bring it! This ends up benefitting my IG and YouTube audience because I have shared many articles of some of talks that I am preparing. My research is getting directly to you after being masticated a bit. As always, I leave some of the lifting to you all as I cannot bear the responsibility of digesting all the data for you. If the article I share stimulates your interest, I will also provide the links to where I got the data or explain how I came to that conclusion.
Financial Compensation/Multiple Streams of Income
I am writing the following for the sake of transparency. I hope you appreciate it as such. I am disclosing that I am earning some money off of all this. No one wants to work for free. This may motivate some of you to do the same, potentially use the same or similar model, or just wonder why I am investing so much time into it all. Achieving 10,000 followers is a big part of monetizing this whole ordeal. By no means am I going to quit my job and live off of this, but it does provide incentive. The good thing is that none of this will cost you one cent. For the sake of full disclosure, here’s how all this works. First of all, the swipe up feature is going to allow me to send you to a couple different locations.
My Website: eddyjoemd.com
I have this website that runs ads. Google Adsense sends me a check every month for the website. At the time of this writing, I earned $0.63 yesterday and $0.72 the day before. Let’s say $20 a month. How’s that for transparency? I don’t have any expectations for the website to blow up but I enjoy doing it. I enjoy typing out with my improper grammar and run-on sentences what I’m thinking as I go through the articles. I have learned a lot about the google algorithms, SEO, keywords and the like. Many cool people on YouTube such as Income School and Miles Beckler for those who are interested in going down that rabbit hole. I really like to learn and expand my knowledge. This was something cool and it’s rewarding.
The YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/eddyjoemd
This has been my longest running side gig. My channel is over four years old now. I had to stop and think about it. It feels newer than that. Oh well. This was a very successful and much more profitable venue to discuss medicine things with you all but recently YouTube changed their algorithm because of the vaccination and misinformation which destroyed my audience and leads. I was no longer being recommended. This is why I ask for some thumbs up during my videos because it helps YouTube see that I’m legit and not someone pretending to be a physician. I plan on making many more videos as time allows in the near future. I just need more feedback as to whether the videos are any good or if I can do better. At the moment spending 15 minutes shooting a video and 5 minutes editing it for 400 views isn’t worth my time. I may have to change strategies. I just may not be that good or I may be too niche. I’ll figure this out. It’s also challenging to record myself. Do I really have to stress that hearing the sound of my own voice when I’m editing irks me?
Amazon Affiliates
I may start plugging in a book that I am enjoying and think it’s a good value which will be helpful for you all. I may do this on a story, a blog post, or a link to my Amazon store. The fun part for me is that you don’t even need to buy that particular book or item for me to earn a commission. I’m always reading something that’s not medicine related. At this time I am reading this book by Dale Carnegie Titled: Public Speaking for Success. If you click on that link, it will open up the book on Amazon. In the next 24 hours, if you purchase that book OR anything else whatsoever on amazon, I will get a commission. It doesn’t make your price higher. I earn something like 1-5% of the price of the item. Definitely won’t make me wealthy but it pays for Netflix. I also have an Amazon Store. For those interested, creating an Amazon Affiliate account is really easy.
Tips for those who are trying to find any type of success around here.
Provide value. The results I have experienced speak for themselves. I even created a graph about it. People who know me aren’t the least bit surprised that I’ve kept peripheral track of my follower count and more recently have kept track almost daily. At first I was naive enough to think that I could get there on just posting random things. That my life would be sufficiently interesting to carry some weight. Harsh reality struck. Truth is, as an individual, I am not that interesting. I had to come up with a way to get there without butt pics. The day I decided to start sharing what I was already doing on my free time, i.e. reading a bunch of articles, is the day my account starting making a drastic upswing.
I need to shout out to everyone who has ever shared my page and helped me reach 10000 instagram followers. Without these kind people who did this for me and my page out of the goodness of their own heart, I would potentially never be writing this post. Apologies if you shared my page and you’re not on this list. Call me out on it like Sean Dent did! I will go in alphabetical order:
@afibflutter
@amandasximd
@ambcarerx
@anishathemd
@ashleyadkinsrn
@austinchiangmd
@bedsideroundz
@breatheeasy_rrt
@brendalee_figurepro
@combatmidwife
@corporatenutritionist
@doctor.charlesclinton
@doctorwarsgame
@drbuckparker
@drcindylou
@drhakman
@drkmitchell
@drkoriashner
@drmanuelroman
@drmcsaucy84
@dr.tommymartin
@elisewitz
@grepmed
@hayleykrayburn
@herbsandfood
@icuphysiotherapist
@ingriddborges
@jacquicormier_rn
@kettyelena
@kristinyatesdo
@leahem09
@me.girlincognito
@michaelgalvezmd
@nicolekupchik
@nikiz11
@npstudentmagazine
@nurseannrn
@oneinamelon.co
@pagethepa
@paramedicpractitioner
@physiciandoodles
@plan.film.medical.memes
@poojalakshminmimd
@pre_stethoscope_life
@rn_ratched
@seanpdent
@the_resuscitationist
@thedoughnutdiary
@theencouragingdoc
@thefacetiousmurse
@themedicnurse
@xray.doctor
@yournursingeducator
That’s enough for today! Hope this helps. Again, thank you all for your support!
-EJ