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New media operators active on some platforms offer tips on how to increase traffic for medical science accounts. Screenshot from the Internet

Recently, the Cyberspace Administration of China has deployed a special campaign across the country to "clear and rectify false and vulgar phenomena in the field of online live streaming", focusing on rectifying five prominent problems in the field of online live streaming, including "pseudo-popular science" and "pseudo-knowledge" that confuse the public, impersonating professionals in the fields of finance, education, health care, justice, etc., selling goods and courses by providing so-called "professional services", and engaging in improper marketing.

Are some medical science video accounts operated by doctors themselves? Where are the boundaries of medical and health self-media? In this regard, China Youth Daily and China Youth Network reporters conducted in-depth interviews.

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Under the lighting and setting, the cameraman adjusted the picture and turned on the camera. A doctor in a white coat stared at the camera, adjusted his emotions, glanced at the prompter on the side from time to time, and talked freely with a smile on his face.

This is not a TV program, but a way for some doctors who focus on health science to become popular on the Internet by shooting self-media videos. They do science popularization and explain health knowledge on short video platforms and social media, and some have become "Internet celebrity doctors" with millions of fans.

Are these video accounts operated by doctors themselves? Where is the boundary of medical and health self-media? In this regard, China Youth Daily and China Youth Network reporters conducted in-depth interviews and found that there is an operation chain behind these accounts: doctors appear on camera, the operation department shoots, edits and publishes content, and is responsible for advertising, and then the customer service department maintains the comment area, replies to private messages, and converts fans into hospital patients through "speech skills" that can drive network traffic. Under the operation of non-professional and informal teams, some "Internet celebrity doctors" have emerged who sell goods and courses and conduct improper marketing by providing so-called "professional services", which has changed the taste and shape of some medical and health popular science.

Know the password for data flow, but know nothing about medical and health knowledge

Although she is not a medical worker, Jiang Yu (pseudonym) shuttles around the hospital every day. In the morning, she starts her day by accompanying the doctor on ward rounds or seeing patients. She and the cameraman have a clear division of labor: one is responsible for finding inspiration for topic selection and copywriting planning in the communication between doctors and patients, and the other is responsible for shooting the material.

Jiang Yu is one of the leaders of a private hospital's self-media operation team, leading 10 employees to operate a doctor's full-platform account. She told the China Youth Daily and China Youth Network reporter that the doctor sees dozens of patients every day and has no time to update video content, so Jiang Yu and her assistants are responsible for everything, from the selection of pictures, videos and live broadcasts, copywriting planning, editing and publishing, to the maintenance of account background data, replies and user conversion.

In Jiang Yu's opinion, it is a common operation mode for hospitals to hand over the self-media accounts of institutions or doctors to operation teams or Internet celebrity incubation agencies (hereinafter referred to as "MCN agencies") for operation. Some institutions or individuals, in order to "stand out of the circle" and gain "traffic", do not hesitate to take some "extraordinary" measures.

China Youth Daily and China Youth Network reporters found that some "Internet celebrity doctors" have a dedicated "operation" team behind them, and some new media operators are active on the platform, giving "tips" to increase traffic for medical science accounts. The founder of an MCN agency described by the platform as focusing on medical traffic monetization claimed in a video that if you want to make a hit video, you need to find 10 similar IPs with good traffic based on your own expertise, sort out the 20 most popular videos from their content, and remake them 1:1. Such "account creation strategies" are quite popular on the platform.

These "operation teams" create a "net celebrity doctor" and provide one-stop services starting from copywriting planning. They specialize in studying Internet traffic passwords, but they are "novice" in medical and health knowledge.

Jiang Yu admitted that there are currently no members with medical professional backgrounds in their team. "There was a nursing student before, but he was later transferred to the customer service department." When these non-professionals write copy, they "process" popular science content that they have pieced together from the Internet. Doctors only take a quick look before filming, and when they are busy, they even take it and read it, which does not play a role in checking.

Different doctors have their own specialties, but the reporter saw a lot of "random talk" in some doctors' video accounts, such as what are the natural enemies of mosquitoes, how to fill out college entrance examination applications, and other content that is not within the scope of doctors' expertise. "Whatever content is popular, just take advantage of it, and attract users first." Jiang Yu said that it is easier to write graphic content, and the operators are like tailors splicing various things together. In order to create a "hot product", they mainly use the "title party" route, and the titles they create are either alarmist or sell anxiety to attract attention.

Chen Hao (pseudonym) is an obstetrician who has been popularizing health knowledge on self-media platforms since 2021. He told reporters that popularization work takes up most of his free time, and sometimes he is still shooting short videos at 1 a.m. Due to his busy work, it is difficult for his account to be updated frequently.

Last year, an MCN agency offered him an olive branch, but after checking several doctor accounts operated by the agency, he gave up signing. "A pediatrician is teaching people how to choose contact lenses." Chen Hao said that some medical science accounts are just to cater to the public's tastes instead of doing professional science popularization seriously.

In order to gain traffic, they would not hesitate to "pose and make up stories"

In order to attract more traffic, Jiang Yu and his team members made the medical science content as interesting as possible, even going so far as to "write scripts and make up stories". After the operators processed the sound by speeding it up, it became a patient who had traveled a long distance to seek medical treatment and help.

They will throw out topics that are easy to arouse social concern, such as "Can I still marry my son's girlfriend who has been diagnosed with the disease?", "How terrible it is that a young couple deceived the doctor and did not tell the truth when seeing a doctor?", or "The husband has been ill for 20 years, and the wife has never left him" to attract attention and create topics. "Such videos obviously have more likes and comments, which will drive traffic up." Jiang Yu said, "Young and expressive doctors can also arrange special scripts for photo shoots."

Such medical self-media staged photos are not isolated cases. On January 3 this year, Guo, a pediatrician with 427,000 followers, posted a video on his certified self-media platform: After he got off work from the outpatient clinic, he found a mother and daughter in the waiting area who had taken a train from Guangxi to see a doctor. Because they did not know how to make an appointment, they wanted to sleep in the waiting area and register the next day.

Guo said in the video that he "felt sad and had mixed feelings, and wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes". He was worried that the mother and daughter would catch a cold and get sick at night, so he worked overtime to treat the children. In the comment section of the video, many netizens were moved by the doctor's behavior and gave thumbs up.

Later, some netizens discovered that the same "heartwarming" story appeared on the self-media accounts of dozens of doctors across the country. The plots of these stories were highly similar, and even the words at the beginning of the video were the same. Later, Guo admitted in an interview with the media that these contents were "exaggerated" by his publicity team, and he just read the script during the filming.

In addition to "scripted staged photos", some "pseudo-popular science" can easily lead people into misunderstandings.

On a certain online platform, some short video creators use their "personal experience" to demonstrate various so-called "vision recovery" techniques. These bloggers claim that as long as you follow their methods to train, your vision can be significantly "improved" or even "restored", and your severe myopia of 800 degrees can be improved to 100 degrees.

In response to this, China's Internet Joint Rumor-Refuting Platform refuted the rumor, emphasizing that there is currently no effective medical cure for myopia, and it can only be prevented from getting worse through scientific correction and improved eye habits.

Xing Yan, director of the First Department of Neurology at the Air Force General Hospital, has been committed to medical science popularization. She believes that doctors should treat medical science popularization videos correctly, pay attention to social hot spots and public needs, and conduct professional science popularization on common diseases, health misunderstandings and other issues, rather than pursuing "traffic is king". At the same time, she reminds the public to remain rational, improve their health knowledge and literacy, and carefully identify and screen medical information on the Internet to avoid being misled by false information.

"Internet celebrity doctor" opens window display function

In the view of Jiang Yu and the operation team, it is not easy to find a doctor who is suitable for building a personal IP (personal brand - reporter's note) on the Internet. There are nearly 10 doctors in her hospital. They have tried to open self-media accounts for 5 doctors. Only two doctors' accounts have the potential to become "Internet celebrities". Currently, each of them has more than 6 million fans on the entire network.

With traffic, "Internet celebrity doctors" can "monetize". They can direct patients to hospitals and provide online consultations. Some MCN agencies will screen users with needs and match them with cooperating doctors. These doctors will serve as health management consultants to guide people's daily living habits, eating habits and health needs.

Jiang Yu often communicates with her peers. She found that most MCN organizations that focus on medical popular science accounts have dedicated customer service teams. After the popular science content is released, the doctor's account is handed over to the customer service department. The customer service staff is responsible for replying to comments or private messages to bring traffic to the hospital. "The platform will not care because the consultation process takes place outside the platform." Jiang Yu revealed.

The reporter sent a private message to a doctor account operated by an MCN agency on a certain platform, and immediately received an automatic reply message containing a link. Clicking the link, he was directed to a third-party platform to fill in the patient's confirmed disease, illness time, phone number and other information. The next day, the reporter received a call from the hospital's customer service. The other party claimed to be the doctor's assistant, sent the hospital address, and invited him to come for a consultation.

Jiang Yu admitted that the two doctors' self-media accounts of the hospital she runs can attract 200 patients to the hospital in one month, and "the operating and revenue-generating effect is still very good."

In addition, many medical self-media accounts have opened the window display function. The video content focuses on health science popularization, but the goods sold range from health products to daily necessities, kitchen utensils, etc. The window homepage of a doctor account operated by Jiang Yu shows that there are 2,653 items on sale and 2,388 people are buying them.

After checking the content of several doctor accounts operated by MCN agencies, the reporter found that these agencies are good at implicit commercial advertising. For example, doctors only recommend certain ingredients or formulas in the video without mentioning specific products. In the comment area, some fans often ask doctors which brand they recommend based on their trust in them, and these doctors will give "guidance" in the top comment reply.

It is necessary to comprehensively manage medical self-media with professionalism and compliance as the direction. In recent years, major short video platforms have strictly controlled the professional identity authentication of doctors and the threshold for publishing medical health science popularization. However, the reporter's investigation found that there are still some unauthenticated accounts that are not doctors, but use the banner of doctors to conduct "pseudo science popularization".

Jiang Yu said that due to the adjustment of platform policies, it is becoming increasingly difficult to run medical self-media accounts. However, for some requirements, there can be "policies from above and countermeasures from below". According to regulations, personal accounts need to have "qualifications of attending physicians in public tertiary hospitals and above". In this regard, Jiang Yu said that platform certification can be achieved by allowing doctors to practice in multiple locations (the act of qualified practicing physicians being employed to practice in more than two medical institutions - reporter's note). The account she operates is a private hospital doctor account that has obtained certification by "hanging on" a hospital in Shandong, and it is still in operation.

China Youth Daily·China Youth Network Intern Reporter Chen Xiao Reporter Huang Chong Source: China Youth Daily

(Source: China Youth Daily)

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